Congress today put up an impressive show in the by-elections in seven states wresting from Samajwadi Party the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh and vanquishing the Left Front in its bastions of West Bengal, and Kerala. In all, Congress won ten of the 31 assembly seats which went to polls.<br/><br/>The ruling BSP in Uttar Pradesh snatched away four assembly seats from the Samajwadi Party in its tally of seven of the 11 by-elections.<br/><br/>In the Lok Sabha by-election, actor-turned- Congress candidate Raj Babbar defeated Dimple Yadav, daughter-in-law of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, by an overwhelming margin of 85,343 votes. The seat was won in May by Dimple's husband Akhilesh Yadav, who retained Kannauj and gave up Firozabad. BSP has made a surprise comeback in Uttar Pradesh. Its candidates won in 7 seats wresting Isauli, Hainsar Bazar, Etawah and Bharthana from SP and Padrouna from Congress, besides retaining Rari and Lalitpur. In Kolasala, Ajai Rai, an Independent won the seat for the fourth time in a row.<br/><br/>Continuing its whitewash of the Left Front in the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala, the Congress retained all the three seats, Kannur, Ernakulam and Alappuzha.<br/><br/>The Congress also won two seats in Assam and one each in UP, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.<br/><br/>The CPI(M), which heads the Left coalition governments in West Bengal and Kerala, drew a blank in a dozen seats. Trinamool Congress repeated its Lok Sabha performance in West Bengal when it came out with flying colours in 5 of the<br/><br/>10 seats and was leading in two.<br/><br/>The sole consolation for the Left parties came from the victory of Forward Bloc in Goalpokhar, where it wrested the seat from Congress. The remaining seat went to an Independent. Upbeat over her party's spectacular performance, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee said, it is a victory for democracy and peace. While Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declined to comment on the outcome, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said the Left parties accepted the people's mandate and would analyse the factors responsible for the reverses. <br/><br/>In Rajasthan and in Himachal Pradesh, BJP defeated Congress candidates to win a seat each. BJP, however, yielded Vaishali Nagar seat in Chhattisgarh to Congress.<br/><br/> <br/><br/>