From the Urdu Press: ‘Bypoll booster for INDIA mirrors LS trends’, ‘Why Samvidhan Hatya Diwas now, in third term?’

The outcome of the 13 Assembly bypolls across seven states saw the Opposition INDIA alliance coming on top by winning 10 seats as against the ruling BJP’s two. This marked the second round of electoral battle after the recent Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP’s performance was underwhelming. Like in the general elections, the INDIA parties contested separately in West Bengal and Punjab in the bypolls too. Splashing their results on the front pages, the Urdu dailies read in them an echo of the Lok Sabha elections, arguing that despite being a formidable election machinery, the BJP’s inability to trump the INDIA bloc reflected its sliding popularity.

ROZNAMA RASHTRIYA SAHARA

Commenting on the results of the 13 Assembly bypolls, the multi-edition Roznama Rashtriya Sahara, in its leader on July 14, says that the elections coming weeks after the Lok Sabha results were significant as they indicated the current standing of the leading parties in various belts in seven states. The bypoll results giving the Congress and TMC four seats each, the AAP and DMK one each, and the BJP just two were a surprise, the daily says. Talking about the bypolls for three Himachal Pradesh seats, it says the Congress would be enthused about bagging two, including Dehra, where its candidate was Kamlesh Thakur, the wife of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who defeated the BJP’s Hoshyar Singh. “In Himachal, the Congress also bagged the Nalagarh seat but could not win Hamirpur. The BJP won from Madhya Pradesh’s Amarwara, although the Congress may take heart that it lost the seat with a narrow margin,” the edit states.

“In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s inability to retain the Ayodhya (Faizabad) seat had buoyed the INDIA alliance. Now, in the