The stage is all set for a tough battle in six states – Maharashtra, Telangana, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh – for the high-stakes bypolls in seven assembly constituencies on November 3. These elections were necessitated after either the sitting legislators passed away, joined other parties, or were convicted by a court in criminal cases.
Polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm amid tight security and the counting of votes will be done on November 6.
Here’s all you need to know about these seven assembly constituencies:
1. Munugode (Telangana)
The contest in the Munugode assembly constituency is crucial for all major parties in Telangana – the ruling TRS, opposition BJP, and Congress. Over 2.41 lakh voters would exercise their franchise at 298 polling stations spread across the constituency.
The bypoll has been necessitated by the resignation of sitting Congress MLA Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy from the party and his post in August. He has joined the BJP and is seeking re-election. While 47 candidates are in the fray, the main contest is confined to Raj Gopal Reddy (BJP), former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy of TRS and Congress’ Palvai Sravanthi.
The bypoll assumed great political significance as the winner would have an edge over others ahead of next year’s legislative assembly polls in Telangana. The TRS, recently renamed as Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), aims to demonstrate its dominance in state politics and go national with a big win here. The BJP, meanwhile, hopes to give a push to its plans to emerge as the alternative to TRS with a victory in Munugode.
For the beleaguered Congress, it is almost a do-or-die battle in view of its below par performances in the 2014 and 2018 Assembly elections and the subsequent bypolls. If Congress loses, it would be a double whammy for the party as Munugode was its sitting seat.
2. Andheri East (Maharashtra)
A total of 2,71,502 voters and 256 polling booths are all set for byelection to the Andheri East assembly constituency in Mumbai on Thursday. Andheri East is a cosmopolitan area comprising largely Maharashtrian voters, north Indians, south Indians, Christians and Muslims.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction has fielded Rutuja Latke, the wife of incumbent Sena MLA Ramesh Latke whose death in May necessitated the poll. She is pitted against six candidates – four of them Independents.
The BJP fielded Murji Patel, but he later withdrew his candidature after the party decided not to contest.
It is the first election after the revolt in the Shiv Sena by Eknath Shinde and 39 other legislators led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.
According to news agency PTI, political observers have claimed that the BJP’s move to withdraw its candidate was aimed at denying Uddhav a morale booster or an upper hand should Latke emerge victorious at the hustings. The main aim of the BJP and the Shinde faction is to unseat Thackeray’s Sena from the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) where the elections are due in next few months, they further claimed.
3. Mokama (Bihar)
For the Mokama bypolls, the BJP has left no stone unturned to win the seat for the first time, while the ruling Mahagathbandhan’s largest constituent RJD is going all-out to retain it.
BJP nominee Sonam Devi is up against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification has necessitated the by-election. Neelam’s nomination was supported by the seven-party grand alliance, formed after stripping the saffron camp of power in the state in August.
Mokama is the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005. He won the seat twice on JD(U) tickets. Singh fought as an RJD candidate in the 2020 elections and retained the seat. But he was disqualified from the assembly following his conviction in a criminal case.
BJP’s Sonam Devi, wife of a local muscleman Lalan Singh who has been opposed to Anant Singh, is a greenhorn. Her husband is known to be a confidant of Suraj Bhan Singh, a dreaded gangster-turned-politician who had made his electoral debut in the 2000 assembly elections.
The BJP is contesting from the Mokama constituency for the first time as the saffron party had, on previous occasions, left the seat to its allies.
Around 2,70,166 electorates in the assembly segment are eligible to exercise their franchise.
4. Gopalganj (Bihar)
Apart from Mokama, by-election to Goapalgunj will also be held, and this will be the first electoral test for the Nitish Kumar-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government, formed less than three months ago. The seat fell vacant after the death of sitting BJP MLA Subhash Singh. BJP has given the ticket to his wife Kusum Devi and will contest against RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta.
5. Adampur (Haryana)
Nearly 1.71 lakh eligible voters will decide the fate of the Bhajan Lal family in Adampur assembly constituency bypoll as the family holds on to its bastion of five decades.
Twenty-two candidates, all men, are in the fray. The main parties contesting are the BJP, Congress, Indian National Lok Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party.
Former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi has maintained that Adampur has been his family’s citadel. The Adampur seat has been held by the Bhajan Lal family since 1968, with the the late ex-chief minister representing it on nine occasions, his wife Jasma Devi once and Kuldeep on four occasions.
The bypoll was necessitated after Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA from the seat and switched sides from the Congress to the BJP in August.
Bishnoi’s son Bhavya, who is contesting the bypoll as the BJP candidate, had also quit the Congress and joined the BJP. The Congress has fielded former Union minister Jai Prakash, a three-time MP from Hisar and two-time MLA as well. The INLD picked Congress rebel Kurda Ram Nambardar as its candidate. The AAP has fielded Satender Singh, who switched over from the BJP.
A total of 180 polling booths have been set up – 36 of them are sensitive and 39 hypersensitive.
6. Gola Gokrannath (Uttar Pradesh)
The bypolls to the Gola Gokarannath assembly constituency are set to witness a contest between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party as the Congress and the BSP opted out of the electoral battle. A total of seven candidates have filed papers for the elections.
The bypolls to the constituency were necessitated by the death of sitting MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. The BJP has fielded his son Aman Giri for the bypolls while the Samajwadi Party (SP) has given ticket to former MLA Vinay Tiwari.
7. Dhamnagar (Odisha)
BJD has fielded Abanti Das, the lone woman among the five candidates, for the bypolls.
BJP has fielded Suryabanshi Suraj. Odisha BJP president Samir Mohanty, the party’s state in-charge D Purendeswar, Leader of Opposition JN Mishra, MPs and MLAs too campaigned for Suraj, the son of late Dhamnagar MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi, whose untimely demises on September 19 necessitated the by-poll.
The saffron party is optimistic of retaining Dhamnagar seat based on sympathy votes. In two by-polls held in Dhamnagar in 1961 and 1990, the wife and son of deceased MLAs had won the seat.
The BJP has taken the by-poll as a prestige issue ahead of the 2024 general election as Dhamnagar seat was won by the party in the 2019 state poll. The party had lost the Balasore sadar seat in the by-poll held amid the pandemic in 2020 though it had won it just a year ago.
Also in the fray is the AAP candidate Anwar Sheikh.
Over 2.38 lakh voters will exercise their franchise in 252 polling stations in the constituency. Around 107 polling stations have been identified as sensitive.
(with inputs from PTI)
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