Sunday, June 5 2005 16:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Lucknow: Making a clean sweep of the all the four Assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) combine today (Jun 5, 2005) wrested a seat each from BJP and BSP and retained two others as Congress dished out a dismal show with all its candidates losing deposits.

SP's nominee Mohd Ashraf Ahmed, who contested the election from jail, romped home from Allahabad (West) constituency defeating BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party)'s Puja Pal by a margin of 13,383 votes.

Ahmed is an accused in the murder of Raju Pal, an MLA whose killing led to the bypoll. Puja, who contested the election, is widow of Raju Pal.

SP candidate Algu Prasad scraped through in Haiser Bazar when he defeated his nearest BSP rival Dashrath Prasad by a margin of 94 votes. The ruling party retained the seat.

The SP also retained the Varanasi (North) seat when its nominee Rabia Begum humbled her nearest Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rival Ravinder Jaiswal by a margin of 15,958 votes.

The seat fell vacant following the death of Rabia's husband.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal wrested Khairagarh seat from BJP whose candidate fared a poor fourth and lost his security deposit.

Amar Singh (RLD) defeated BSP's Bhupendra Pal Singh, his nearest rival, by 2900 votes to win the seat.

The Congress fared badly with all its candidates losing security deposits.

With today's results, the SP tally in the 403-member State Assembly rose to 196 and RLD's 15 giving the coalition a comfortable majority.

The combine also claims to enjoy the support of over a dozen independents.