Voting Underway in 6 Assembly Seats in 5 States, Mainpuri LS Seat in UP

New Delhi: Voting is underway in one Lok Sabha seat and six Assembly seats in five states.  The counting for all seats will be done December 8.

UP: Mainpuri Lok Sabha, 2 Assembly Seats

Lucknow: Polling gained momentum after starting on a dull note in the bypolls to three seats in Uttar Pradesh in Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat and Rampur Sadar and Khatauli Assembly seats.

The bypolls are witnessing a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the opposition Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance. The BSP and the Congress are not contesting the seats.

Voting is take place at 3,062 polling booths located in 1,945 polling centres.

The bye-election to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat is taking place due to the demise of Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, while the bypolls in Rampur Sadar and Khatauli were necessitated after SP MLA Azam Khan and BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini were disqualified following their conviction in separate cases.

While Khan was disqualified after a court awarded him three-year imprisonment in a 2019 hate speech case, Saini lost his membership of the assembly after his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case.

There are six candidates in the fray in Mainpuri, 14 candidates in Khatauli and 10 in Rampur Sadar, according to the Election Commission.

In Mainpuri, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and SP president Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is pitted against BJP's Raghuraj Singh Shakya.

The BJP candidate, who was once a close associate of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief and Akhilesh Yadav's uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav, joined the saffron party ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls held earlier this year.

The BJP has fielded Akash Saxena, who is the son of former party MLA Shiv Bahadur Saxena, in Rampur Sadar against senior SP leader Azam Khan's protege Asim Raja.

In Khatauli, the fight is between Vikram Singh Saini's wife Rajkumari Saini and Madan Bhaiya from the RLD.

Kurhani Assembly Seat in Bihar

Patna: Voting is underway on Monday for bypoll to Kurhani Assembly seat amid tight security across 320 booths in the constituency.

The Assembly segment, falling in Muzaffarpur district, has been necessitated by the disqualification of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA Anil Kumar Sahani.

Altogether 13 candidates, including five Independents, are in the fray.

The main contenders are former MLAs Kedar Gupta and Manoj Singh Kushwaha, fielded by the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) respectively.

Others who are in the fray include Mohd Ghulam Murtaza (AIMIM) and Neelabh Kumar (VIP).

Odisha: Padampur Assembly Seat

Bhubaneswar: In Odisha's Padampur Assembly constituency, at  least 1,400 police personnel and nine companies of central paramilitary forces have been deployed for the by-election, the official said.

All the entry and exit points of the constituency were sealed as the assembly segment was earlier considered as a Maoist-infested area, he said.

There are 10 candidates in the fray.

The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) fielded Barsha Singh Bariha, the daughter of Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha whose death necessitated the bypoll, while the opposition BJP's nominee is the former MLA and party’s Krushak Morcha president Pradip Purohit.

Congress' candidate Satya Bhusan Sahu had won the seat three times earlier.

Chhattisgarh: Bhanupratappur Assembly Seat

Kanker: Voting was underway for the Bhanupratappur Assembly seat in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district.

Seven candidates are in the fray in the constituency, which is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, though it is largely seen as a direct contest between the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The byelection has been necessitated due to the death of Congress MLA and state Assembly's Deputy Speaker Manoj Singh Mandavi after a heart attack on October 16.

The Congress has fielded his wife in the bypoll.

Sarva Adivasi Samaj, an umbrella body of tribal communities in Bastar, has also fielded its candidate, former Indian Police Service Officer Akbar Ram Korram, who is contesting as an independent.

A total of 356 polling stations have been set up, of which 239 are in rural areas and the rest in the urban part of the constituency.

Around 2,500 security personnel, including paramilitary forces, have been roped in for the smooth conduct of polling in Bhanupratappur, which is a part of Bastar division, a senior police official said.

Rajasthan's Sardarshahar Assembly Seat

Jaipur: Voting in the Assembly bye-election at Sardarshahar in Rajasthan's Churu district will see 2,89,843 eligible persons exercise their franchise.

The bypoll has been necessitated following the demise of Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma, who passed away on October 9 after prolonged illness.

The Congress has fielded the late Sharma's son Anil Kumar and former MLA Ashok Kumar is the BJP candidate.

Eight other candidates are in the fray: Lalchand of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), Sanwarmal Meghwal of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Parmana Ram of the Indian People's Green Party and Independent candidates Subhash Chandra, Vijay Pal Singh Sheoran, Umesh Sahu, Prem Singh and Surendra Singh Rajpurohit.