New Delhi: The results of byelections in seven Assembly seats spread across six states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Maharashtra and Odisha are to be declared on Sunday.
Out of these seven seats, the Congress held two, BJP three while the RJD and Shiv Sena held one each.
In Haryana’s Adampur seat, it remains to be seen whether former chief minister late Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi would be able to take forward the family’s legacy or not, after his father Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as Congress MLA to join the BJP, thus leading to the byelection.
In Bihar, it would be the first contest after the JD(U) dumped the BJP and allied with the RJD.
In Mokama, RJD’s Neelam Devi will try to retain the seat which was earlier held by her husband, Anant Singh, a strongman, who was disqualified after being convicted of illegally keeping guns.
The Gopalganj Assembly seat, which has been under the BJP’s control for almost 20 years, the RJD would be hoping to reverse the trend. It has fielded Mohan Prasad Gupta against the BJP’s Kusum Devi, whose husband Subhash Singh’s death necessitated the election.
In the politically sensitive Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will try to retain the Gola Gokarannath seat, which fell vacant after the death of its MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. With the BSP and Congress keeping away, it’s going to be a direct contest between Giri’s son Aman Giri and the Samajwadi Party’s Vinay Tiwari, a former MLA.
Maharashtra’s Andheri is not going to be much of a contest as the BJP withdrew its candidate honouring the time tested tradition of not fielding a candidate, where the seat fell vacant after the death of Shiv Sena’s Ramesh Latke.
Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of Shiv Sena has fielded Latke’s wife Rutuja Latke.
Telangana’s Munugode seat will witness a fight between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the BJP, which is trying to establish itself in a state where it has no base.
The seat had fell vacant after the Congress MLA had resigned and joined the BJP and is now contesting as that party’s candidate.
In Odisha’s Dhamnagar, too, the ruling regional party BJD is facing the BJP. The BJP won from the seat in last Assembly poll, but MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi’s death led to this contest. The BJP has fielded his son.
–IANS