NEW DELHI: Nearly 50 assembly seats will be up for grabs in various states’ by-elections later this year, coinciding with upcoming elections in three states and one union territory.
The majority of these state legislature vacancies are due to MLAs becoming MPs in the 18th Lok Sabha. This group includes Akhilesh Yadav, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Basavraj Bommai, Jitan Ram Manjhi, and HD Kumaraswamy, who have been chief ministers before.
Sikkim’s CM, Prem Singh Tamang, elected to keep one seat, forcing a byelection.
Rahul Gandhi’s decision to retain Rae Bareli left Wayanad as the only parliamentary seat bypoll.
Uttar Pradesh has the most mid-term assembly vacancies, with 10 seats, followed by West Bengal with six, Assam and Rajasthan with five, Bihar and Punjab with four, and Karnataka and Kerala with three, among others.
The vacant seats must be filled within six months of the polls, which will be held in November in most cases.The 50 or so by-elections may coincide with this year’s assembly election, which is being planned in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir.BYPOLL Campaign
The large number of assembly vacancies has sparked high politics in some states.
Uttar Pradesh’s top leadership is in a huddle over ten bypolls, including prestige wars in Karhal, vacated by former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, and Milkipur, vacated after Awadesh Prasad won Lok Sabha elections from Ayodhya.
Five of the six West Bengal seats were won by Trinamool Congress candidates, largely from the BJP, and will be fiercely guarded.
Of the five vacant assembly seats in Rajasthan, three were held by Congress MLAs and will likely see fierce rivalry. The Sis Ram Ola family in Jhunjhunu intends to pass on their stronghold to the next generation, as does Hanuman Beniwal, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party’s founder, who vacated Khinsvar after winning the Nagaur Lok Sabha.
The Bihar bypoll list comprises Tarari, Ramgarh, Imamganj, and Belaganj, which were left vacant by the Lok Sabha election of existing MLAs of all party stripes, including Sudama Prasad (CPI-ML), Sudhakar Singh (RJD), current Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM), and Surendra Prasad Yadav (RJD).
Former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s shift to the Lok Sabha has left Budhni vacant in Madhya Pradesh.
Punjab has vacancies in Barnala, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal, and Gidderbaha; in the latter case, Punjab state Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring’s wife is planning to run in his place. Much is seething in Barnala, with another NSA inmate, Kulwant Rauke, preparing to contest.
Sikkim is an interesting case with sitting CM Prem Singh Tamang retaining the Rhenock seat and vacating Soreng-Chakung which will see a bypoll. Alongside, his wife Krishna Kumari Rai has left Namchi-Singhithang without a MLA- resigning a day after she won the election from the seat.
In Gujarat, the sole Congress MP Geniben Nagaji Thakor’s has left Vav assembly seat vacant while in Delhi- it is BJP’s – Ramvir Singh Bidhuri whose Lok Sabha election has left Badarpur seat vacant. Chhattisgarh also has one bypoll queued up at Raipur city South with senior BJP leader and former minister Brijmohan Agarwal moving to Lok Sabha.
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