The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has gone full throttle to win the by-elections to all the seven Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, slated to be held on November 3, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath holding virtual meetings with the party workers in these constituencies and asking them to spread the message of good governance among the masses.
“Go out to the villages and spread the message of good work being done by both the Central and the state governments for the welfare of the people,” the chief minister said while addressing party workers on Sunday.
The chief minister is leading the campaign from the front as he has already attended a meeting in Unnao.
BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh has already addressed election meetings in two assembly constituencies.
BJP state vice president and MLC Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here on Sunday that the party had already deployed state ministers and other senior leaders in all the seven Assembly constituencies going to bypolls.
“The party was preparing for the bypolls even during the lockdown and the state leadership was in touch virtually with all the booth-level party workers in a phased manner,” he said.
Pathak said that the party had screened the candidates for the bypolls and the final names would be announced soon.
As the BJP is all geared up for the bypolls, the opposition parties — Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party – have not yet launched their campaign.
Congress has announced candidates for just one seat of Bangarmau so far while other political parties are yet to select their candidates.
However, the BSP has selected some candidates but has not yet made an official announcement of their names.
On the other hand, the SP state leadership is in touch with the leaders of the Assembly seats where bypolls will be held . “We will come up with our candidates soon,” SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said.
However, the Election Commission will start the process of nominations in these seven seats on October 9.
Out of the seven Assembly seats going to bypolls, six were held by BJP and one by the SP. Though the results of these seven seats will not affect the fate of the government, it will leave a big political message for the UP assembly elections in 2022..
Among the Assembly seats where the bypolls will be held, Tundla seat of Firozabad fell vacant after the resignation of BJP’s SP Baghel on being elected to Lok Sabha. BJP’s Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s Bangarmau seat of Unnao fell vacant as his membership was cancelled after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Unnao rape case.
Apart from this, after the demise of Parasnath Yadav of Samajwadi Party, the Malhani assembly seat in Jaunpur fell vacant.
The seats of BJP’s Janmejaya Singh from Deoria Sadar and Virender Sirohi from Bulandshahr fell vacant after their deaths, while Ghatampur seat of Kanpur fell vacant following the death of BJP’s minister Kamal Rani Varun who died of COVID-19.
The Naugawan Sadat seat in Amroha fell vacant after international cricketer and state minister Chetan Chauhan died due to coronavirus infection.
There are eight vacant Assembly seats but the Election Commission is not holding the bypoll to Suar seat in Rampur due to some legal complications. The Suar seat fell vacant after disqualification of Abdullah Azam, son of Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan due to age forgery.
The nominations will commence from October 9 and will end on October 16 while scrutiny of papers would be done on October 17. Candidates can withdraw their nominations till October 19.
The polling would be held on November 3 and the counting of votes would be taken up on November 10 along with the counting of Bihar assembly votes.
In all the seven seats, a four-cornered contest is expected as the BJP, the SP, the BSP and the Congress have announced to contest the bypolls.