Voting in bypolls to seven assembly seats on Thursday

Patna/Lucknow/Hyderabad: Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states - a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the BJP and regional parties.

While in Haryana former chief minister Bhajan Lal's family is trying to hold on to its bastion of five decades, Bihar will see the first electoral test for the Nitish Kumar-led 'Mahagathbandhan' government, formed less than three months ago after the JD(U) parted ways with the BJP.

The saffron party is seeking to retain Gola Gorakhnath seat in Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar in BJD-ruled Odisha, banking on sympathy votes as it has fielded the sons of sitting MLAs whose death necessitated the bypolls.

The BJP and the ruling TRS had been campaigning aggressively in Manugoda in Telangana, where the Congress MLA had resigned and is fighting on the saffron party's ticket.

The Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements for polling, including the deployment of 3,366 state police and 15 companies of central security personnel in Manugoda. Webcasting would be done from all the polling stations, officials said.

In Adampur, Haryana, the by-election was necessitated after Bhajan Lal's younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA from the seat and switched from the Congress to the BJP in August. Bishnoi's son Bhavya is now contesting as the BJP candidate.

The Adampur seat has been held by the Bhajan Lal family since 1968, with the the late ex-chief minister representing it on nine occasions, his wife Jasma Devi once and Kuldeep on four occasions.

The Congress, Indian National Lok Dal and Aam Aadmi Party are among the key parties contesting the bypolls.

Bypolls are being held in Mokama and Gopalganj seats in Bihar, earlier held by the RJD and the BJP respectively.

The BJP is contesting from the Mokama constituency for the first time as the saffron party had, on previous occasions, left the seat to its allies. Both the BJP and the RJD have fielded the wives of local musclemen in the bypolls.

BJP nominee Sonam Devi is up against RJD’s Neelam Devi, whose husband Anant Singh’s disqualification has necessitated the by-election.

Mokama is the stronghold of Anant Singh since 2005. He won the seat twice on JD(U) tickets and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has appealed to voters to support him.

“The Mahagathbandhan candidates will comfortably win from both assembly seats. Electorates have seen the development work undertaken by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the state,” State Finance Minister and Senior JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said.

Sonam Devi, the wife of local muscleman Lalan Singh who has been opposed to Anant Singh, is a greenhorn. Lalan is known to be a confidant of Suraj Bhan Singh, a dreaded gangster-turned-politician, who in the 2000 assembly election defeated Anant Singh’s elder brother Dilip Singh who was a minister in the Rabri Devi government.

In Gopalganj, BJP has fielded Kusum Devi, the wife of deceased party MLA Subhash Singh. The RJD has fielded Mohan Gupta, while Indira Yadav, wife of Lalu Yadav’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav, is contesting as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate.

Alleging that the Mahagathbandhan government is “anti-people and anti-poor”, Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said the grand alliance candidates in the two seats will experience “humiliating defeat as voters don’t want the return of jungle raj in the state”.

Shiv Sena's Rutuja Latke is expected to comfortably win Andheri East Assembly constituency in Mumbai after the BJP withdrew from the contest which is the first after the recent split in the Shiv Sena following a rebellion by Eknath Shinde, who replaced Thackeray as the Maharashtra chief minister.

The NCP and Congress have supported her candidature.

The by-election was necessitated due to the death of Rutuja Latke's husband and Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May this year.

Among the seven seats where bypolls are being held, the BJP and the Congress held two seats each, while one seat each was with the BJD, Shiv Sena and RJD.

While a victory in the bypolls will be inconsequential to their position in the assemblies, the parties have not taken the contest lightly and carried out a hight pitched campaign .

The counting of votes will take place on November 6.

The Election Commission has asked Telangana's chief electoral officer to keep a "close watch" on the Munugode Assembly constituency through "various enforcement agencies" amid allegations of attempts to induce voters.

The TRS, recently renamed Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), aims to demonstrate its dominance in state politics and go national with a big win here. A loss would hamper not only its national plans but also embolden the opposition ahead of the Assembly polls.

The BJP, meanwhile, hopes to give a push to its plans to emerge as the alternative to TRS with a victory in Munugode.

While 47 candidates are in the fray, the main contest is between RK Rajagopal Reddy for BJP, former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy of TRS and Congress' Palvai Sravanthi.

The BJP had deployed Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, state unit president and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, party MLAs Eatala Rajender and M Raghunandan Rao among other leaders for the campaign.

The TRS too raised the pitch with several state ministers, MLAs and campaigning in the constituency. TRS Working President K T Rama Rao even announced that he would "adopt" the constituency and personally focus on its development.

Congress nominee Palvai Sravanthi is banking on the goodwill of her late father Palvai Govardhan Reddy who had served as Munugode MLA and as MP.

The Gola Gorakhnath seat in Uttar Pradesh fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. With the BSP and the Congress keeping away from the bypolls, there seems to be a direct fight between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party The BJP has fielded Aman Giri, son of Arvind Giri, while the SP candidate is former Gola MLA Vinay Tiwari.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been actively campaigning in the constituency where former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson is among 22 candidates in the fray.

Leaving behind the political rivalry between the Bhajan Lal and Devi Lal families, Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala also campaigned for Bhavya. The JJP leader is the great-grandson of Devi Lal.

The Congress has fielded former Union minister Jai Prakash, a three-time MP from Hisar and two-time MLA as well.

The INLD picked Congress rebel Kurda Ram Nambardar as its candidate. The AAP has fielded Satender Singh, who switched over from the BJP.

The BJD has fielded Abanti Das, the lone woman among the total five candidates in Dhamnagar. BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi’s death necessitated the by-poll. The saffron party, banking on sympathy votes, has fielded Sethi's son Suryabanshi Suraj.

The BJD won all six Zilla Parishad seats and 9 of 11 wards of Dhamnagar Notified Area Council (NAC) in the panchayat and civic polls held in February and April respectively this year. The party has also won all bypolls since 2019.

“I am optimistic that the people will repeat it,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik earlier said.

The BJD’s official candidate is facing a rebel as its former MLA Rajendra Das is in the fray as an Independent.