LUCKNOW/CHANDIGARGH — Bypolls in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand will be held on Wednesday.
Votes will be counted on November 23. The results of the bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies.
In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in haziabad.
This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2022 assembly polls, Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal and Kundarki were won by the SP, while the BJP won Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Khair. The Meerapur seat was won by BJP ally RLD.
Bypolls will also be held in four assembly seats — Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala — in Punjab.
The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Of the four assembly segments, Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak and Chabbewal were earlier held by the Congress, and the Barnala seat by the AAP.
Forty-five candidates, including three women, are in the fray. A total of 6.96 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
The bypolls will decide the fate of key contestants, including BJP nominee and former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Congress’s Amrita Warring, Jatinder Kaur, AAP’s Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon, Dr Ishank Kumar Chabbewal and BJP’s Kewal Singh Dhillon, Sohan Singh Thandal and Ravikaran Singh Kahlon.
Amrita Warring is the wife of Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. Jatinder Kaur is the spouse of Gurdaspur MP and former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.
Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
The bypoll in Palakkad was necessitated after the Congress MLA of the constituency, Shafi Parambil, got elected to the Lok Sabha from the Vadakara constituency.
The Kedarnath seat fell vacant after the death of sitting BJP MLA Shailarani Rawat in July. Both the candidates, BJP’s Asha Nautiyal and Manoj Rawat of Congress, have represented the Kedarnath assembly seat in the past.
Nautiyal won it in 2002 and 2007 as a BJP candidate. Shaila Rani Rawat won it in 2012 on a Congress ticket. She contested the seat as a BJP nominee in 2017 and lost to the Manoj Rawat. However, she wrested the seat from Rawat in 2022.
A total of 90,540 voters, including 45,775 women, in the constituency are eligible to exercise their franchise.