Lucknow: Counting of votes is going on in three Lok Sabha and seven Assembly seats began at 8 am on Sunday amid tight security arrangements.
The three Lok Sabha constituencies are Azamgarh and Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and Sangrur in Punjab.
Assembly constituencies that went for bypolls were
- Rajinder Nagar in Delhi
- Mandar in Jharkhand
- Atmakur in Andhra Pradesh
- Agartala, Town Bordowali, Surma and Jabarajnagar in Tripura.
Live updates:
4:50 pm: “Victory in by-polls have sent an optimistic message regarding 2024 general elections. People have shown their trust in double-engine governmentt under PM Modi. People have given a clear message to ‘parivarvadis’, casteist and communalist elements,” said UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
3:55 pm: The BJP defeated the Samajwadi Party by more than 40,000 votes in the byelection for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat on Sunday, and it now leads in Azamgarh by more than 11,000 votes.
Both seats have historically served as strongholds for Akhilesh Yadav’s party. Azam Khan, the party’s tallest Muslim leader, abandoned the Azamgarh seat after the former chief minister was elected to the state parliament, but he did not do the same for the Rampur seat.
3:21 pm: BJP candidates are leading in Azamgarh and Rampur.
3:20 pm: AAP’s Durgesh Pathak defeated BJP candidate Rajesh Bhatia by a margin of over 11,000 votes in Rajinder Nagar assembly bypoll.
3:00 pm: AAP conceded defeat in the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll and congratulated Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) candidate Simranjit Singh Mann.
1:51 pm: BJP candidates are leading in Azamgarh and Rampur.
1:12 pm: SP candidate leading in Azamgarh by 826 votes.
12:30 pm: After 11 rounds, AAP candidate Durgesh Pathak leading in Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar
12:00 noon: AAP candidate leading by 1000 votes in Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar
11:30 am: SP trails by 170 votes in UP’s Azamgarh
11:00 am: In Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar, AAP candidate is leading by around 3000 votes.
10:33 am: After round 9, YSRCP’s Mekapati Vikram Reddy is leading in the Atmakur Assembly seat. Number of votes polled by candidates of various parties is as follows:
- YSRCP- 45,924
- BJP- 8,315
- BSP- 2,217
- NOTA-1,946
10:25 am: In Tripura, out of four assembly constituencies that went for bypolls, BJP is leading in four and Congress in one.
10:20 am: In Andhra Pradesh’s Atmakur Assembly seat, YSRCP’s Mekapati Vikram Reddy is leading whereas, in Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar, AAP’s Durgesh Pathak is leading.
10:15 am: In Sangrur Lok Sabha seat, SAD’s candidate is leading by 42 votes.
9:45 am: Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) chief and candidate Simranjit Singh Mann is leading from the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat
9:00 am: SP candidate leading in Rampur, BJP ahead in Azamgarh
8:00 am: Counting begins
First popularity test for AAP in Punjab
Sangrur is considered the first popularity test for AAP that has won the assembly polls in the State with a thumping majority.
The Lok Sabha seat had gone to poll on June 23, recording a low turnout of 45.30 percent.
The bypoll was necessitated due to the resignation of Bhagwant Mann from the Lok Sabha after he was elected as an MLA in the state assembly elections earlier this year.
Mann, who is the state’s chief minister now, had won the Sangrur seat in the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections.
The AAP has fielded Gurmail Singh, the party’s Sangrur district in-charge.
Rampur, Azamgarh by-polls
The Lok Sabha seats in Rampur and Azamgarh had become vacant following the resignation of Mohd Azam Khan and Akhilesh Yadav, respectively, in March this year.
Although a low voter turnout was recorded in the bypolls, the seats have significant importance in Uttar Pradesh politics.
In Rampur, BJP had fielded former SP MLC Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi who recently joined the saffron party, while the SP had nominated Asim Raja, a close associate of Azam Khan. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) did not contest from Rampur.
The Azamgarh seat witnessed a triangular contest between BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’, a famous Bhojpuri actor-singer, the SP’s Dharmendra Yadav and the BSP’s Shah Alam, also known as Guddu Jamali.
