Lucknow: Voting for by-elections in nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh has started at 7 am today. The commission has made special preparations to conduct the elections peacefully. Counting of votes will take place on November 23.
Voting has started in Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Kundarki (Moradabad), Ghaziabad, Khair Reserved (Aligarh), Karhal (Mainpuri), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Phulpur (Prayagraj), Katehari (Ambedkarnagar) and Majhawan (Mirzapur) seats. UP Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said that the Election Commission has made extensive arrangements for fair and peaceful elections. The Chief Electoral Officer said that voting is taking place at 3718 polling booths of a total of 1917 polling centers in the by-election. 1237 of these polling stations are sensitive.
To keep a close watch on the voting, the commission has also deployed 9 general observers, 5 police observers and 9 expenditure observers. There are 1846846 male, 1588967 female and 161 third gender voters on these nine seats. Ghaziabad has the highest number of candidates at 14 and Khair and Sisamau assembly constituencies have the lowest number of candidates at 5 each. There are a total of 3435974 voters on these seats. Whereas, 90 candidates including 11 women are in the fray. Apart from voter photo identity card, 12 other identity cards will be valid for voting.
In this by-election, Bharatiya Janata Party is contesting on eight seats and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal on one seat. On the other hand, SP is contesting on all nine seats with the support of Congress. BSP is also contesting on all nine seats in this by-election.
Apart from SP, BJP and BSP, other political parties are also in the fray to try their luck on Karhal assembly seat. The main contest is believed to be between SP and BJP. It is known that if we talk about assembly seats, eight seats have fallen vacant due to the current MLAs being elected as Lok Sabha members, while the by-election on Sisamau assembly seat of Kanpur is being held due to the conviction of SP MLA Irfan Solanki.
In the 2022 assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party won Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, Milkipur and Kundarki seats. While the BJP won in Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Khair. The Meerapur seat went to the account of RLD, which is now a part of the NDA and an ally of the BJP. Congress is not contesting the by-election. It has supported the candidates of the India Alliance.
