BHOPAL/HYDERABAD: BJP lost its first parliamentary seat 
today after the party’s spectacular 2014 Lok Sabha victory when it failed to retain the Ratlam-Jhabua constituency in a bypoll in Madhya Pradesh losing to Congress in a setback coming close on the heels of its Bihar drubbing.
The defeat in a BJP-ruled state that helped Congress increase its tally to 45 in the Lower House reverses the trend in the six earlier Lok Sabha bypolls where the incumbent parties had retained their seats. The strength of BJP comes down to 281 in the 543-member House.
The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), however, retained the Warangal (SC) Lok Sabha seat today as Pasunoori Dayakar won by a massive margin of nearly 4.6 lakh votes, defeating the candidates of Congress and the BJP-TDP combine. All the eight bypolls were necessitated either due to seats being vacated or death of sitting members.
BJP’s Nirmala Bhuria was trounced by former Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria of Congress in Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) seat which the saffron party had won in 2014 during the landslide victory in the state bagging 27 of the 29 seats. (AGENCIES)
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