BJP vs Grand Alliance; Uddhav vs Shinde: Stage set for key bypolls

The Election Commission (EC) on Monday announced bypolls to seven vacant assembly seats in six states to be held on November 3.

Bypolls will be held at Adampur of Haryana, Munugode of Telangana, Mokama and Gopalganj seats of Bihar, Andheri (East) of Maharashtra, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh, and Dhamnagar of Odisha.

The notification for the bypolls will be issued on October 7, said the EC. According to the poll panel statement, October 14 is the last date to submit nominations. Candidates can withdraw their nomination on or before October 17.

The counting of votes will take place on November 6, the poll panel said in a statement.

The bypolls were announced as many seats fell vacant.

BJP against Grand Alliance plus Nitish

In Bihar, the bypolls are set to be the first test for the newly formed Grand Alliance government. The BJP has not taken kindly to Nitish joining hands with Lalu and the Congress and thus likely to flex its muscles, especially in Gopalganj, which fell vacant after the demise of BJP’s Subhash Singh in August.

While the Grand Alliance is yet to decide on a candidate – according to sources, JD(U) is keen on contesting and so is the Congress — the BJP is likely to field Singh’s wife. Singh was a prominent Rajput face of the BJP and held the cooperatives portfolio in the NDA government.

Also read: To become PM, Nitish Kumar backstabbed BJP: Amit Shah

The other seat going to the bypolls in Bihar is Mokama, the stronghold of RJD MLA Anant Singh who was convicted in an arms case. Leaders in the RJD said that they were likely to contest the seat.

Anant Singh represented the seat from 2005 to 2015 on a JD (U) ticket; in 2015, he contested as an Independent and in 2020 as an RJD candidate. In the last assembly elections, Singh defeated JD (U) candidate Rajeev Lochan Narayan Singh by a margin of over 37,000 votes. For the BJP, the seat is set to be a fresh challenge with the party contesting the election after a long gap.

Shinde vs Uddhav electorally

The Andheri East seat in Maharashtra too fell vacant due to the demise of the Shiv Sena’s Ramesh Latke. The bypoll is significant as it will be the first litmus test for the Uddhav Sena and Eknath Shinde after the split in the party in June.

Also read: ‘Real’ Shiv Sena: SC allows EC to decide on Eknath Shinde group’s claim

Latke had defeated Independent candidate Muraji Patel, who has now been fielded by BJP. He will face Latke’s wife Rutika from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena. The Shinde camp of rebels is backing the BJP, which is banking on Muraji’s personal popularity as a former corporator from the area. Uddhav’s Sena is hoping to capitalise on a sympathy wave.

Prestige fight for TRS

In Telengana’s Munugode constituency, the bypoll has been necessitated by the resignation of Congress MLA K Raj Gopal Reddy on August 2, citing differences with Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy. Raj Gopal Reddy has since joined the BJP, which has fielded him in the byelection.

The Congress, meanwhile, has fielded Palvai Sravanthi, the daughter of former MLA and ex- Rajya Sabha MP Palvai Govardhan Reddy.

The KCR-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will have former MLA K Prabhakar Reddy in the fray. The TRS is treating it as a battle of prestige, and will leave no stone unturned to stop the BJP from winning another by-election after wresting Dubbak and Huzurabad from TRS in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Also read: Telangana: To bolster Delhi dream, KCR gives national touch to TRS

BJP-held seats

Gola Gokarnnath in Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar in Odisha fell vacant due to the demise of their respective legislators — BJP’s Arvind Giri and Bishnu Sethi, respectively – while Haryana’s Adampur seat fell vacant after the resignation of Kuldeep Bishnoi, who left the Congress to join the BJP.

Gola Gokrannath seat falls in the Lakhimpur Kheri sub-division where farmers gathered a couple of days ago to observe the completion of one year of farmer deaths when Ashish Teni allegedly ran over them. Odisha’s Dhamnagar seat is significant as it was one of the two coastal Odisha seats that the BJP won in 2019, which the BJD will want to wrest it back.