Voting in bypolls to one Lok Sabha, seven assembly seats on Monday

Voting will be held on Monday in bypolls to six assembly seats in five states and the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party is locked in a highvoltage contest with the BJPRampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh Padampur in Odisha Sardarshahar in Rajasthan Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls will be heldElection authorities have made elaborate arrangements for the byelectionsThe counting of votes for the single parliamentary and six assembly seats will be held on December 8 coinciding with the ballot count for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly electionsIn Uttar Pradesh a direct contest between the BJP and the Samajwadi PartyRashtriya Lok Dal RLD alliance is on the cards in bypolls to the Rampur Sadar and Khatauli assembly seats and the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituencyThe BSP and the Congress are not contesting from the seatsAccording to a statement issued by the office of Uttar Pradeshs Chief Electoral Officer 2443 lakh people will exercise their voting rights in the bypollsAlso Read Gujarat polls PM Modi Amit Shah to cast votes in Ahmedabad in second phaseThis includes 1314 lakh male voters 1129 lakh female voters and 132 third category voters it saidVoting will take place from 7 am to 6 pm at 3062 polling booths located in 1945 polling centresWhile the bypoll to the Mainpuri parliamentary seat is taking place due to the death of Samajwadi Party SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav in Rampur Sadar and Khatauli the polls were necessitated after SP MLA Azam Khan and BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini were disqualified following their conviction in separate casesWhile Khan was disqualified after a court awarded him threeyear imprisonment in a 2019 hate speech case Saini lost his membership of the assembly after his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots caseThe outcomes of the bypolls will not have any impact on the central or the state governments as the BJP enjoys a comfortable majority at both levelsHowever wins would provide a psychological advantage ahead of the 2024 general electionsMulayam Singh Yadavs elder daughterinlaw Dimple Yadav is the SP candidate in Mainpuri while the BJP has fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya a former confidant of Mulayams brother Shivpal Singh Yadav Dimple Yadav is the wife of SP president Akhilesh YadavWhile Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is hoping to demolish the key Samajwadi Party SP citadels after wresting Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats in June bypolls the SP is keen to turn the tide with the public show of unity by Shivpal and Akhilesh who declared that they have bridged their differencesThe Sardarshahar seat in Rajasthan was held by Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma 77 who passed away on October 9 after a prolonged illness The Congress has fielded the late Sharmas son Anil Kumar while former MLA Ashok Kumar is the BJP candidateEight other candidates are in the frayThe byelection to the Padampur seat in Odisha was necessitated by the death of BJD legislator Bijay Ranjan Singh BarihaOfficials said elaborate security arrangements have been made for free and fair voting As many as 10 candidates are in the fray for the byelectionThe bypoll assumes significance in the wake of the BJDs loss in Dhamnagar its first such defeat since 2009 with many in political circles claiming that the result would also indicate if electoral scales were tilting against the Naveen Patnaikled party ahead of 2024 state electionsThe BJD has nominated from the seat the deceased MLAs daughter Barsha who is set to take on BJPs Pradip Purohit a former MLA and Congress candidate and threetime legislator Satya Bhusan Sahu among othersThe bypoll to Bhanupratappur seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the Maoisthit Kanker was necessitated due to the death of Congress MLA and deputy speaker of the Assembly Manoj Singh Mandavi last monthAs many as seven candidates are in the fray though it is largely a direct contest between the ruling Congress and the BJPThe Congress has fielded Savitri Mandavi the wife of the deceased MLA while the BJP nominee is former MLA Brahmanand NetamSarva Adivasi Samaj an umbrella body of tribal communities in Bastar has also fielded former Indian Police Service Officer Akbar Ram Korram who is contesting as an Independent Korram retired as Deputy Inspector General DIG of Police in 2020In the Kurhani assembly segment in Bihar the success of JDU candidate Manoj Singh Kushwaha a former MLA will cement Chief Minister Nitish Kumars position while a loss may embolden his detractorsThe JDU is contesting the seat where the byelection has been necessitated by the disqualification of RJD MLA Anil Kumar SahaniThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the 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