India
Bypolls underway in 15 seats in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand: key issues | India News – Times of India
However, these bypolls are not expected to have a direct impact on the composition of the respective legislative assemblies.
In Uttar Pradesh, elections are taking place in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki, with 90 candidates contesting. Ghaziabad has the highest number of candidates with 14.
The bypolls pose the first electoral challenge for both the INDIA bloc and the NDA in the state after the Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2022 parliamentary elections, these seats were divided between the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
Punjab will see bypolls in Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. These bypolls were necessary after the MLAs from these constituencies were elected to the Lok Sabha. Of the four seats, three were previously held by the Congress, while the Barnala seat belonged to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Forty-five candidates, including three women, are vying for these seats, with key candidates such as former Punjab Finance Minister and BJP candidate Manpreet Singh Badal, Congress’ Amrita Warring and AAP’s Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon in the fray.
In Kerala, the bypoll in Palakkad constituency was triggered by the election of Congress MLA Shafi Parambil to the Lok Sabha from Vadakara.
In Uttarakhand, voters in Kedarnath cast their votes after the death of BJP MLA Shailarani Rawat. The seat was a battleground between the BJP’s Asha Nautiyal and the Congress’s Manoj Rawat, both of whom have represented the constituency in the past.
Kedarnath constituency has 90,540 eligible voters, including 45,775 women.
