The ruling Samajwadi Party is set to face another test before the 2017 Assembly polls in the form of bypolls to two Assembly seats at Ghazipur and Moradabad next month. Both seats were held by the ruling party.
The Jangipur seat in Ghazipur fell vacant after sitting MlA and Panchayati Raj minister Kailash Nath Yadav died onFebruary 9 while the Bilari seat of Moradabad fell vacant following the death of sitting legislator Haji Mohammad Irfan in a road accident in Badaun on March 10 while he ws en route to Etawah to attend the wedding of PWD minister Shivpal Singh’s son Aditya.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced byelections at Jangipur seat of Ghazipur and Bilari seat of Moradabad on May 16.
UP Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Arun Singhal said that nominations for the bypolls would start from April 22 and continue till April 29. The scrutiny of papers would be done on April 30 and the last date for withdrawal will be May 2.
Polling on these seats would be held on May 16 between 7 am and 5 pm and the counting of votes would be done from 8 am on May 19.
Earlier in February, bypolls were held at Muzaffarnagar, Deoband (Saharanpur) and Bikapur (Faizabad) Assembly seats wherein the SP candidates were drubbed in the first two seats and could only retain the third one. The Muzaffarnagar seat was wrested by the BJP while the Congress bagged the Deoband seat inlficting facile defeat to the ruling party candidates.