The process for filing nomination for by-polls on 11 Assembly seats and one Parliamentary seat, closed on Wednesday, a total of 149 candidates are in the fray. In lucknow, both BJP candidate, Gopalji Tandon and Congress candidate, Ramesh Srivastava, filed their nominations on Wednesday.
According to official communiqué, a maximum of 31 candidates are in the fray from the lucknow East seat, with minimum number of six candidates have filed nominations for Charkhari seat. For the lone Mainpuri, lok Sabha seat, 14 candidates have filed their nominations.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer R K Pandey said the nominations will be scrutinised on Thursday, while August 30 is the last date for the withdrawal of nominations. Voting would take place on September 13. He claimed that the real picture of exact number of candidates in the fray would only come once the date of withdrawl of papers would expire on coming Saturday.
Of the 11 Assembly seats, Thakurdwara, Saharanpur, Charkahari, Bijnore, Hamirpur, lucknow East, Sirathu, Khiri, Balha and Noida fell vacant after BJP legislators of these seats won last Parliament elections, while Rohaniya seat fell vacant due to Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel’s resignation after being elected as an MP. Mainpuri seat fell vacant due to the resignation of SP supreme Mulayam Singh Yadav, who also won from the Azamgarh seat. While SP and Congress are contesting all 11 Assembly seats, BSP is not contesting elections.