Sun Feb 09 08:09:59 UTC 2025: **BJP Wins Uttar Pradesh By-Election Amidst Fraud Allegations**

LUCKNOW, INDIA – February 8, 2025 – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a resounding victory in the Milkipur Assembly by-election in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, defeating the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate by a significant margin of 61,710 votes. BJP’s Chandrabhan Paswan garnered 1,46,397 votes against SP’s Ajit Prasad’s 84,687 votes.

The BJP celebrated the win as a testament to its “double-engine” government, while the SP vehemently accused the BJP of large-scale electoral fraud, repeating allegations made on polling day. The by-election, held in a constituency reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, was marked by a fiercely contested campaign focusing on the BJP’s Hindutva ideology and the SP’s PDA (Pichda, Dalit, and Alpasankhyak) narrative targeting backward classes, Dalits, and minority communities. The seat became vacant after the SP’s previous MLA won a Lok Sabha seat.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the BJP’s success to the public’s faith in the party’s governance. However, SP president Akhilesh Yadav alleged widespread rigging, claiming the BJP resorted to electoral manipulation to compensate for its declining popularity. He stated that while such tactics might work in a single constituency, they would be ineffective in the upcoming 2027 Assembly elections. The SP had previously accused the state administration of biased deployment of election officials based on caste.

The Milkipur by-election, held on February 5th, recorded a voter turnout of 57.13%. The accusations of electoral fraud cast a shadow over the BJP’s victory, setting the stage for further political maneuvering ahead of the next state assembly elections.

Read More