Results for bypolls, 7 assembly seats today

NEW DELHI: Counting for June 23 bypolls to three Lok Sabha seats and seven assembly seats across six states will take place on Sunday. While the three Lok Sabha seats that are up for grabs are in Uttar Pradesh (Rampur and Azamgarh) and Punjab (Sangrur), assembly seats are spread across Tripura, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi.

While none of the results has the potential of an upturning of government, most are highpitched, prestige battles with significant political pride at stake.

In Punjab’s Sangrur for instance, the seat that Bhagwant Mann relinquished as a member of parliament to become the chief minister earlier this year, both ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and opposition parties are pondering the implications of a reduction in the voting percentage, from 72.4% in 2019 to 45.3% on June 23. The AAP is wary of the fact that a defeat could make the three-month-old Mann-led state government look weak, while for the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), a defeat will further dent the position of party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is under fire for successive electoral defeats.

In Uttar Pradesh, the bypolls were held on the two prestigious

Lok Sabha seats of Rampur and Azamgarh — considered Samajwadi Party (SP) bastions — vacated by Azam Khan and Akhilesh Yadav, respectively. While both the SP and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state have said they campaigned extensively in both constituencies, the SP campaign has been marred by suggestions of infighting, with Akhilesh Yadav not going to Rampur to campaign. The BJP has fielded Bhojpuri actor, singer Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua from Azamgarh and Ghanshyam Lodhi, an OBC, from Rampur. Four of the seven assembly seats going to the polls are in Tripura, where chief minister Manik Saha and powerful Bjp-turned-congress leader Sudip Roy Barman are both on ballot, in Town Bordowali and Agartala seats. The other two seats are Jubarajnagar and Surma. “The by-poll results are seen as a semi-final before the 60-seat assembly polls scheduled to be held in 2023,” said political expert Chandan Dey.

In Jharkhand’s Mandar, the bypoll was necessitated after three-term legislator and former minister Bandhu Tirkey was convicted by a special CBI court in a disproportionate assets case. Jharkhand Congress has fielded his daughter Shilpi Neha Trikey who is locked in a direct contest against BJP’S Gangotri Kujur.