Byelections to Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana Lok Sabha will be held on May 28, making it one of the hotly contested political fights in recent times.
The by-election in Kairana was necessitated after the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Hukum Dev Singh, who won the seat in 2014 by a huge margin in a bitterly polarised contest following unprecedented communal riots in the region. The BJP is defending Kairana against a united opposition in the byelection. Its candidate, Hukum Dev Singh’s daughter Mriganka, is up against Tabassum Hasan, who is contesting on an Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket and has the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress party as well.
Kairana is a prestige fight for the BJP following the defeat of its candidates to those of the SP, supported by the BSP, in by-elections to the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur and Phulpur in March. Here’s one chart to explain the vote arithmetic in Kairana.