- By Abhinav Gupta
- Mon, 21 Oct 2019 07:47 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: As many as 51 Assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies across 18 states are going to bypolls today, as the voters also decide the fate of candidates in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Thirty of these seats going to bypolls are currently held by the BJP, 12 by the Congress and the rest by regional parties.
A total of 11 seats will go for polls in Uttar Pradesh. Other states include Gujarat (6), Kerela and Bihar (5 each), Punjab and Assam (4 each), Sikkim (3), Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh (2 each), Arunachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Odisha, Puducherry, Telangana (1 each).
Apart from this, bypolls will be held for the Satara and Samastipur Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra and Bihar respectively.
Uttar Pradesh
Of the 11 seats going to the bypolls, eight were held by the BJP and the Pratapgarh seat was held by its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal). The BJP, BSP, SP and the Congress have fielded their candidates on all the seats.
The saffron party is hoping to increase its tally in the Legislative Assembly by registering a win in Rampur, held by the Samajwadi Party, and in Jalalpur, held by the Bahujan Samaj Party.
On the other hand, the opposition parties are expecting to repeat the success they tasted in the bypolls to Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana Lok Sabha seats, and in Noorpur assembly constituency last year.
The Congress, in particular, hopes to show signs of revival in UP after its battering in the Lok Sabha polls in when it won just one seat, party chief Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli constituency.
Bihar
By-polls to one Lok Sabha constituency and five assembly seats in Bihar are being touted as the "semi-finals" ahead of the assembly elections due next year.
Voting is taking place for Samastipur (SC) Lok Sabha seat besides Kishanganj, Nathnagar, Belhar, Simri Bakhtiyarpur and Daraunda assembly constituencies.
While the by-poll in Samastipur has been necessitated by the recent death of sitting LJP MP Ramchandra Paswan, younger brother of the party's founding president, the assembly segments, barring Kishanganj, have fallen vacant upon the respective MLAs getting elected to the Lok Sabha.
By-poll in Kishanganj has been necessitated by the election of Congress MLA Mohd Javed from the parliamentary
the constituency of the same name.
Gujarat
Bypolls in six is viewed as a battle of prestige for Chief Minister Vijay Rupani as a chunk of these seats were held by the ruling BJP.
The outcome of the bypolls on October 24 will have a bearing on the current composition of the 182-member House. In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP won 99 seats against the Congress' 77 under Rupani's watch.
The byelections will be held on Tharad, Radhanpur, Kheralu, Bayad, Amraiwadi and Lunawada seats.
The BJP had bagged all the 26 seats in Gujarat in the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year.
The BJP is under pressure to secure the pole position given that four of the six constituencies going to polls were represented by the ruling party before the change of circumstances like some candidates winning the LS polls.
Elections became necessary in Tharad, Lunawada, Kheralu and Amraiwadi after BJP MLAs of these seats got elected to the Lok Sabha.
In Radhanpur and Bayad assembly seats, the BJP has fielded Congress turncoats and former MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Dhavalsinh Zala, respectively.
