UP bypolls: Samajwadi Party bags both Phulpur & Gorakhpur LS seats

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party's (SP) Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel has won Phulpur Lok Sabha seat by 59,613 votes on Wednesday. From Gorakhpur, another SP candidate Pravin Kumar Nishad was elected to the Lok Sabha, defeating the BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,881 votes. In both Phulpur and Gorakhpur, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was behind Samajwadi Party (SP). It means that Mayawati's recent decision to support Akhilesh Yadav to keep BJP at bay beared fruits. After 19th round of counting, SP's Praveen Kumar Nishad was leading by 28,737 votes with 2,93,153 votes, BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla was second with 2,64,416 votes. In both the districts (Gorakhpur and Phulpur), bypolls were held on March 11, Sunday. However, less than 50 % voting was recorded. [ALSO READ] UP bypolls: Less than 50 percent voting in Gorakhpur and Phulpur In Gorakhpur constituency, bypoll was necessitated as the seat was vacated by Yogi Adityanath after taking over as the Chief Minister last year. In Phulpur, bypoll was necessitated after Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated his seat. The Uttar Pradesh bypolls are being seen as a "rehearsal" for the 2019 general election. Winning Gorakhpur seat, in particular, was a matter of prestige for the saffron party as it had been a bastion of now CM Yogi Adityanath who has won from that seat five consecutive times. Interestingly, just before the by-elections in the state, BSP had extended support to arch-rival Samajwadi Party candidates so that BJP loses. YOU MAY ALSO LIKE TO READ OPINION: Naxalism menace in India and the way forward