Buoyed by the success of Assembly elections in Haryana right after the Lok Sabha polls, a high voltage campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several Union Ministers and Chief Ministers has set the tone and tenor of the first phase of Assembly elections in Jharkhand, and bypolls in 31 seats spread across 10 states, and the most watched Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, which will be held on Wednesday amidst tight security arrangements.
The second phase of Assembly polls and bypolls is scheduled on November 20 which will see second phase of Jharkhand, single phase Maharashtra and several bypoll Assembly pockets including that in Uttar Pradesh. Counting will be held on November 23, as per the Election Commission dateline.
Though these by-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA Bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana Assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut from Wayanad vacated by her sibling Rahul Gandhi who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency.
Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Though polling was also scheduled for two seats in Sikkim, Soreng-Chakung and Namchi-Singhithang, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) nominees Aditya Golay and Satish Chandra Rai have already been declared unopposed after their rivals withdrew from the race.
In Rajasthan, bypolls will be held in Jhunjhunu, Dausa, Deoli-Uniara, Khinvsar, Chaurasi, Salumbar and Ramgarh. In Salumbar and Ramgarh, the bye-elections were necessitated due to the demise of the sitting MLAs, Amritlal Meena (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Zubair Khan (Congress) respectively.
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal had won five of the six seats, Taldangra, Sitai-SC, Naihati, Haroa, Medinipur, and Madarihat - in the 2021 Assembly polls. The Madarihat seat was held by the BJP.
A total of 34 candidates are in the fray in Assam in the five seats going to bypolls - Dholai, Behali, Samaguri, Bongaigaon and Sidli.
In Bihar, bypolls will be held in the Ramgarh, Tarari, Imamganj and Belaganj seats. While in Karnataka, JD(S) leader Nikhil Kumaraswamy is contesting from Channapatna, a seat vacated by his father and Union minister HD Kumaraswamy after being elected to Lok Sabha. The BJP has fielded former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s son, Bharath Bommai, from Shiggaon. He will face Congress candidate Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan. Bypolls will also be held in Sandur in the state.
Voting will also be held in Budhni and Vijaypur Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh. The bypoll to Vijaypur seat in Sheopur district was necessitated after sitting Congress MLA Ramniwas Rawat joined the BJP and was made minister in the Mohan Yadav cabinet. The bypoll to Budhni seat is being held since MLA and former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was elected to the Lok Sabha and is now Union agriculture minister.
The other seats going to bypolls are Chelakkara in Kerala, Vav in Gujarat, Raipur City South in Chhattisgarh and Gambegre (ST) in Meghalaya. Though voting was initially scheduled on Wednesday for nine seats in Uttar Pradesh, four in Punjab and one more seat in Kerala, the Election Commission rescheduled it to November 20 in view of festivals.
The first phase of polling in Jharkhand covering 43 seats with 685 candidates in the fray, is seen as a direct contest between the BJP led NDA and the Congress-JMM led INDIA bloc.
Jamshedpur West will see the highest number of candidates including high profile seats where contestants are former MP AJoy Kumar from Congress, former State Minister Saryu Rai from Janata Dal (United), and daughter in law of former CM of Jharkhand Raghubar Das who is now Governor of Odisha, with 28 nominees, while Jagannathpur has the lowest, with only eight candidates filing nominations.
Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah led the NDA, conducting numerous rallies and roadshows over the past two weeks.
Chief minister Hemant Soren and his MLA wife Kalpana intensified their campaigning for JMM and alliance partners, including Congress, through extensive tours. Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge also visited the state twice each to engage with voters. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma is the incharge of the polls who raked up the infiltration issue in the State.
The state has a total of 2.6 crore voters, comprising 1.31 crore men and 1.29 crore women. Voters aged between 20 and 29 number 66.84 lakh, with 11.84 lakh first-time voters aged 18 and 19.
