Mumbai, Jan. 24: The Congress today made a clean sweep in four Maharashtra bypolls, regaining its position as the single largest party in the state that it had lost to the Nationalist Congress Party after the 2004 Assembly polls.

In the bypolls in Konkan, Congress candidates ? Shankar Kambli (Vengurla), Subhash Bane (Sangmeshwar) and Ganpat Kadam (Rajapur) ? defeated Shiv Sena nominees Ramesh Naik, Ravindra Mane and Rajan Salvi.

The three are Narayan Rane loyalists and had followed the Shiv Sena rebel to the Congress.

Kambli won by the highest margin of 52,503 votes against the Sena’s Naik. Kadam managed a slender margin of 3,718 votes against Salvi, while Bane defeated Mane by more than 10,000 votes.

In the Lok Sabha bypoll in Sangli in western Maharashtra, Congress candidate Prateek Patil won by over 80,000 votes against Independent candidate Dinakar Patil.

The news of the bypoll wins brought some cheer to the Congress plenary in Hyderabad after the recent debacle in Karnataka where the Dharam Singh-led government teeters on the edge ahead of the confidence vote on January 27.

Particularly pleased with the results was Rane, who has increased his strength within the party.

The Congress had 68 MLAs and the NCP 71 in the 288-seat House before Rane joined the party in July 2005. The party strength has now grown to 72. The Sena’s tally of 63, on the other hand, has shrunk to 57, marginally more than the BJP’s 54.