The result of the prestige battle between the Samajwadi Party and the BJP in the high-profile Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat as well as six other assembly constituencies across five states will be declared on Thursday after the counting of the bypolls. This will coincide with the counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections.
Rampur and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the results will be declared. A high-stakes contest was seen in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri seat, where bypolls were necessitated due to the death of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October, and the Rampur Sadar seat, which fell vacant due to the disqualification of senior SP leader Azam Khan. ,
Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh’s elder daughter-in-law and wife of party chief Akhilesh Yadav, is the SP’s candidate from Mainpuri, considered a Yadav family stronghold, while the BJP has fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidant of Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.
The SP’s victory may provide some solace for Akhilesh after the defeat in the UP Assembly polls earlier this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in the bypolls held in June. With the Congress and BSP staying away from the bypolls, all the three places will see a direct fight between the BJP and the SP as well as its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
Azam Khan, who was the MLA from Rampur, was disqualified by the Assembly Speaker in April 2019 after he was convicted in a hate speech case registered against him and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Khan, who is considered the ‘Muslim face’ of the SP and is out on bail after being in jail for more than two years, has accused his protege Aseem Raja, citing alleged injustice meted out to him by the BJP government in different cases over the years. Voted for. There was less turnout on this seat on Monday.
Sardarshahar and Bhanupratappur were held by the Congress, while Khatauli was held by the BJP and Rampur by the SP. Padampur was with BJD and Kurhani was with RJD. The results of the bypolls will not have any impact on the central and state governments as the ruling parties enjoy a substantial majority.
In Khatauli, which was the epicenter of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in western UP, the BJP is trying to retain the seat by fielding Rajkumari Saini. She is the wife of Vikram Singh Saini, who was disqualified from the assembly after being convicted by a district court in a 2013 riots case and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
RLD candidate Madan Bhaiya, a four-time MLA, won his last election nearly 15 years ago, and then faced defeat three times in a row from Ghaziabad’s Loni in 2012, 2017 and 2022 assembly elections.
The Sardarshahar seat in Rajasthan was held by Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma (77), who died on October 9 after a prolonged illness. The Congress has fielded his son Anil Kumar while former MLA Ashok Kumar is the BJP candidate. The bypoll to Odisha’s Padampur seat was necessitated due to the death of BJD MLA Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha.
After the BJD tasted its first bypoll defeat since 2009 earlier this month, the party launched an aggressive campaign for Barsha Singh Bariha, elder daughter of MLA Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, whose death necessitated the bypoll .
The bypoll to the Bhanupratappur seat, reserved for Scheduled Tribes in Maoist-hit Kanker, was necessitated by the death of Congress MLA and deputy speaker of the assembly Manoj Singh Mandavi last month. The Congress has fielded Savitri Mandavi, wife of the late MLA, while the BJP’s candidate is former MLA Brahmanand Netam.
In Bihar’s Kurhani assembly constituency, the success of JD(U) candidate Manoj Singh Kushwaha, a former MLA, will strengthen the position of chief minister Nitish Kumar, while a defeat could demoralize his opponents. The JD(U) is contesting the seat where the bypoll has been necessitated due to the disqualification of RJD MLA Anil Kumar Sahni.
read all latest politics news Here