Voters back continuity amid strategic shift in state bypolls

NILAMBUR WITNESSES A SYMBOLIC VICTORY FOR THE CONGRESS-LED UDF

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The by-election results declared yesterday, across five Assembly constituencies in Gujarat, Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal, offer a revealing glimpse into the evolving contours of India's regional political landscape.

While by-elections are often shaped by localised factors and do not always serve as definitive predictors of national trends, the outcomes of these contests nonetheless reflect broader undercurrents of voter sentiment, party resilience, and strategic recalibration.

In Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) split the honours, underscoring the ruling party's entrenched dominance and the opposition's capacity for disruption. BJP's Rajendrakumar Chavda secured a decisive victory in the Kadi (SC) constituency, defeating Congress's Rameshbhai Chavda by a margin exceeding 38,000 votes. This result reaffirms the BJP's formidable organisational machinery in Gujarat, where it currently holds 161 of 182 Assembly seats.