Assembly Bypolls: Congress Leads In All 3 Himachal Seats, AAP Ahead In Punjab
The counting is currently underway for bypolls to 13 Assembly seats across seven states. The electoral exercise was the first since the Lok Sabha polls, which saw the BJP-led NDA forming the government for a third straight term.
- Polling for the Assembly byelections was held in 13 Assembly seats across seven states -- four in West Bengal, three in Himachal Pradesh, two in Uttarakhand, and one each in Bihar, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- on July 10.
- In West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is currently leading on all four seats. The ruling party won the Maniktala seat in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections while the BJP won Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Bagda. Later, the BJP MLAs switched to the Trinamool.
- The electoral exercise in Himachal Pradesh will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutants, including Chief Minister and Congress leader Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur from the Dehra constituency, who is currently ahead of her BJP rival Hoshyar Singh. The Congress is also leading in two other seats.
- In Uttarakhand, the Manglaur constituency is witnessing a three-cornered fight in the bypoll, which was held after the death of BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari in October last year. The BJP is currently trailing in Manglaur, a Muslim- and Dalit-dominated seat that has been held either by the Congress or the BSP so far. The ruling party is also trailing in Badrinath.
- The bypoll in Punjab's Jalandhar West assembly segment is being seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Bhagwant Mann. The ruling party is currently leading.
- The Bihar byelection was necessitated by the resignation of sitting MLA Bima Bharti, who had won the seat for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) several times in the past but quit the party recently to contest Lok Sabha elections on an RJD ticket. The JD(U) is currently ahead.
- In Tamil Nadu's Vikravandi assembly constituency, the bypoll was necessitated by the death of DMK legislator N Pughazhendhi on April 6. It is a triangular contest with ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's candidate Anniyur Siva (alias Sivashanmugam A) leading over Pattali Makkal Katchi's (PMK) C Anbumani and Naam Tamilar Katchi's K Abinaya.
- The by-election in the Amarwara assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh Chhindwara district was held after three-time Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah crossed over to the BJP in March. The main contest in this Scheduled Tribes-reserved seat is between the BJP, which fielded Kamlesh Shah, the Congress's Dheeran Shah Invati, and Gondwana Gantantra Party's (GGP) Devraman Bhalavi. Mr Shah is currently ahead.
- The Assembly seats that went to polls were Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Maniktala in West Bengal; Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh. Four of these states are ruled by INDIA bloc constituents while the rest have a BJP or NDA government.
- These bypolls were the first since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which saw the BJP winning 240 seats - 32 short of the majority. The NDA, however, managed to cross the halfway mark of 272 with a total tally of 293 seats. The Congress-led INDIA bloc clinched 232 seats.
(With agency inputs)
