BJP wrests five Gujarat seats from Cong,Jaitley says Ishrat backfired

I have no weapon. My only power is the 5.5 crore people of Gujarat8230; Some people have been saying that without Modi not a single leaf moves in Gujarat. But these bypolls have shown that the BJP in Gujarat is not a one-man party,but a party of workers who can move not just leaves but an entire tree, he said,adding that this was just a trailer of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra next.

In New Delhi,BJP leader Arun Jaitley said sympathising with Ishrat Jahan and her accomplices,who were killed in a 2004 police encounter and were named as Lashkar operatives in an affidavit filed by the Union Home Ministry,proved counter-productive for the Congress. In an election week,to shoot yourself in the foot by identifying with somebody whom even the UPAs Home Ministry has referred to as a LeT activist8230; I think Congress miscalculated it, Jaitley said.

BJP president Rajnath Singh said the results had shown that the Congress was losing ground not only in Gujarat but also in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.

Of the seven Gujarat seats where bypolls were held,six belonged to the Congress while one was with the BJP. The BJP wrested Jasdan,Chotila,Dehgam,Danta and Sami and lost Kodinar to the Congress which retained Dhoraji. The BJP strength in the 182-member Assembly has now gone up to 122. The Congress has 54 MLAs while Others make up the remaining six.