UP Bypolls Latest Update: Amid tight security, voting for 9 seats started at 7 AM at various polling booths in Uttar Pradesh. After intense sloganeering by the leaders of different political parties, campaigning for the November 20 byelections to nine Assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh came to a close on Monday evening. The bypolls will be held at Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar, Karhal in Mainpuri, Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Majhawan in Mirzapur, Sisamau in Kanpur city, Khair in Aligarh, Phulpur in Prayagraj, and Kundarki in Moradabad on November 20, and the results will be out on November 23. Apart from UP, bypolls in 15 assembly seats spread across Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand is also being held on Wednesday.
On UP Bypolls 2024, Acharya Pramod Krishnam said, "I appeal to the voters of Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh to come out of their homes and vote for the bright future, dignity and identity of India."
In Uttar Pradesh, bypolls are being held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur, and Kundarki. This time, over 90 candidates are in the fray for these seats, with a maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad.
While eight seats fell vacant following the incumbent MLAs' election to the Lok Sabha, polling in Sisamau is being conducted due to Samajwadi Party lawmaker Irfan Solanki's disqualification from the assembly after his conviction in a criminal case.
As per the updates from the EC, a total of 34,35,974 voters are eligible to cast their votes, including 18,46,846 men, 15,88,967 women, and 161 third-gender voters in the bypolls. Ghaziabad has the highest voter count, while Sisamau has the lowest this time. In the 2022 Assembly polls, Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal and Kundarki were held by the SP, while the BJP won Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Khair.
In the bypolls today, the Samajwadi Party, supported by the Congress, aims to bolster its legislative numbers, and the BJP and its ally RLD, on the other hand, aim to further solidify their presence.
The Meerapur seat was won by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which is now an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The high-pitched campaign saw senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and his deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, among others, canvas extensively for the party nominees.
Similarly, senior leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP), including its chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife and Mainpuri Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav, also sought votes for their party candidates.
For the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), its state unit chief Vishwanath Pal campaigned extensively for the party nominees.
On the last day of campaigning on Monday, Union minister Jayant Chaudhary, former Chief Minister and SP President Akhilesh Yadav, and two party chiefs – AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi and Chandrashekhar Azad of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) – sought votes for their respective candidates at Meerapur in western Uttar Pradesh.
While the Congress is not contesting the bypolls and supporting its INDIA bloc partner SP, the BSP is going solo in all the nine seats.
The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has fielded candidates in Ghaziabad, Kundarki and Meerapur, while the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) of Chandrashekhar is contesting all the seats barring Sisamau.
