Voting for bypolls to seven Assembly seats spread across six states will take place on Thursday. The seats that will vote are Andheri East (Maharashtra), Adampur (Haryana), Gopalganj and Mokama (Bihar), Munugode (Telangana), Gola Gokarannath (Uttar Pradesh) and Dhamnagar (Odisha).
The counting of votes will take place on November 6. Among the seven seats where bypolls are being held, two each were held by the BJP and the Congress, while one seat each was with the BJD, Shiv Sena, and RJD.
Here are the top 10 points:
>In Adampur, Haryana, the by-election was necessitated after former chief minister Bhajan Lal's younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA from the seat and switched over from the Congress to the BJP. Bishnoi's son Bhavya is now contesting as the BJP candidate as Bhajan Lal's family tries to hold on to its bastion of five decades. The Congress, Indian National Lok Dal, and Aam Aadmi Party are among the key parties contesting.
>In Bihar's Mokama, the BJP is contesting from the seat for the first time as the saffron party had, on previous occasions, left the seat to its allies. Both the BJP and the RJD have fielded wives of local musclemen in the bypolls.
BJP nominee Sonam Devi is up against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification necessitated the by-election. Mokama has been the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005.
{{/usCountry}}BJP nominee Sonam Devi is up against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification necessitated the by-election. Mokama has been the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005.
{{/usCountry}}>In Gopalganj, the BJP has fielded Kusum Devi, wife of late party MLA Subhash Singh. The RJD has fielded Mohan Gupta, while Indira Yadav, wife of Lalu Yadav’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav, is contesting as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate.
>Shiv Sena's Rutuja Latke is expected to comfortably win the Andheri East Assembly constituency in Mumbai after the BJP withdrew from the contest which is the first after the recent split in the Shiv Sena following a rebellion by Eknath Shinde, who replaced Thackeray as the Maharashtra chief minister.
The NCP and Congress have supported Latke’s candidature. The by-election was necessitated due to the death of Rutuja Latke's husband and Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May this year.
>The saffron party is seeking to retain Gola Gorakhnath seat in Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar in BJD-ruled Odisha, banking on sympathy votes as it has fielded the sons of sitting MLAs whose death necessitated the bypolls.
>In Manugoda, the BJP and the ruling TRS had been campaigning aggressively, where the Congress MLA resigned to contest on a saffron ticket.
>The Gola Gorakhnath seat in Uttar Pradesh fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. With the BSP and the Congress keeping away from the bypolls, there seems to be a direct fight between the BJP and Samajwadi Party. The BJP has fielded Aman Giri, son of Arvind Giri, while the SP candidate is former Gola MLA Vinay Tiwari.
(With agency inputs)