New Delhi: The counting of votes in the by-elections to the seven Assembly constituencies spread across six states began at 8 pm on Sunday.
The fierce battle is between Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties such as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
The polling was held on November 3 in Mokama and Gopalganj assembly constituencies of Bihar, Andheri (East) of Maharashtra, Adampur of Haryana, Munugode of Telangana, Gola Gokarannath of Uttar Pradesh, and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
Among the seven seats where by-polls were held, the BJP held three seats, the Congress two while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each.
Live updates
05: 08 pm: Orissa: After round 17, BJP ahead by a comfortable 8825 votes, certain to win Dhamnagar seat with just one round of counting left.
03:50 pm: After 14 rounds BJP leading by nearly 8,000 votes in Adampur
02: 25 pm: Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Rutuja Latke wins in Andheri East by big margin. She got 76.78% of the total votes cast, followed by NOTA (14.89%)
02:19 pm: BJP’s Bhavya Bishnoi wins Adampur bypoll in Haryana
01:46 pm: BJP leading by over 5,000 votes after 9 rounds in Dhamnagar
01:12 pm: After ten rounds, Rutuja Latke of Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena leading with 37,469 votes in Andheri East seat.
01:12 pm: BJP candidate leads by 607 votes after 22nd round in Gopalgunj
12:41 pm: BJP leads in three seats, RJD in 2, Shiv Sena and BJD in one each
12:36 pm: RJD candidate leads by 1,135 votes after 20th round in Gopalgunj bypoll
11:57 am: BJP ahead by over 2,800 votes after Round 11 in Bihar’s Gopalganj
11:56 am: RJD’s Neelam Devi continues her lead on Mokama assembly seat with 66,587 votes, after the 17th round of counting
11:45 am: As voting continued in the Gola Gokarannath assembly byelections on Sunday, BJP candidate Aman Giri established a comfortable lead of approximately 25,000 votes over his closest challenger
According to officials, Vinay Tiwari of the Samajwadi Party received 48,739 votes, while Giri has received 73,371 votes thus far
At 8 am, counting began in this location with strict security measures
Anurag Singh, the returning officer, predicted that there would likely be 32 rounds of counting
11:35 am: BJP’s Bhavya Bishnoi leads by 13,040 votes after sixth round in Adampur bypoll
11:03 am: BJP leads in UP, Odisha, Haryana seats; trailing in Bihar, Telangana
10:53 am: BJP ahead in Odisha. The party’s Suryabanshi Suraj is leading against BJD’s Abanti Das in Odisha’s Dhamnagar
10:40 am: TRS leads by a small margin in Munugode
10:25 am: Rutuja Latke from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena leads in Andheri East
10:11 am: RJD candidate Mohan Prasad Gupta leads in Bihar’s Gopalganj.
9:40 am: In Bihar’s Mokama, Mahagathbandhan candidate Neelam Devi leads
9:11 am: BJP leads in Lakhimpur Kheri bypoll.
9:00 am: In the Munugode assembly seat, TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy leads after the first round
8:00 am: The counting of votes begins
Bypolls across seven states
In the Assembly bypolls held across six states, the Munugode constituency in Telangana recorded the highest voter turnout, as per Election Commission trends.
Haryana’s Adampur seat witnessed the contest between BJP, Congress, Indian National Lok Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In Adampur, the by-election was necessitated after former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA from the seat and switched from the Congress to the BJP in August. Bishnoi’s son Bhavya contested the bypoll as the BJP candidate.
The Congress fielded former Union minister Jai Prakash while the INLD picked Congress rebel Kurda Ram Nambardar as its candidate. Satender Singh was AAP’s candidate.
Notably, the Adampur seat is considered a stronghold of Bishnoi.
In Andheri East, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction’s candidate Rutuja Latke, the wife of incumbent Sena MLA Ramesh Latke whose death in May necessitated the poll, is expected to comfortably win the by-polls as the BJP had decided not to contest.
This was the first election after the revolt in the Shiv Sena by Eknath Shinde and 39 other legislators which led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.
The NCP and Congress have also supported the candidature of Rutuja Latke.
The bypoll Telangana’s Munugode Assembly constituency was necessitated after Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy quit the Congress and also as MLA in August and joined the BJP.
While 47 candidates are in the fray, the eye is on BJP’s Raj Gopal Reddy, former TRS MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy and Congress’ Palvai Sravanthi.
The bypoll results is a prestige battle for Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is planning for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In Bihar, this was the first major election after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar parted his ways with BJP and joined hands with RJD and Congress to form a Grand Alliance government.
The main contest is between the BJP and the RJD in Bihar
For the Mokama bypolls, the BJP has fielded Sonam Devi against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification has necessitated the by-election.
Notably, Mokama is said to be the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005. He won the seat twice on JD(U) tickets.
BJP has given the ticket to Kusum Devi, the wife of incumbent BJP MLA Subhash Singh while RJD has fielded Mohan Prasad Gupta for Goapalgunj by-election.
The BJP is seeking to retain the Gola Gokarannath seat in Uttar Pradesh, which fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Arvind Giri in September.
With the BSP and the Congress keeping away from the bypolls, the fight is between the BJP’s Aman Giri and the SP candidate and former Gola Gokarannath MLA Vinay Tiwari.
In Odisha’s Dhamnagar bypoll, there seems to be a tough contest between ruling BJD candidate Abanti Das and BJP candidate Suryabanshi Suraj Sthitaprajana, the son of Bishnu Sethi, BJP MLA after whose death, the assembly seat fell vacant, as its candidate for the by-election.
With inputs from ANI
