Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: The counting for bypolls to 13 Assembly seats across seven states is currently underway, marking the first electoral exercise since the BJP-led NDA secured a third consecutive term in the Lok Sabha polls.
Polling was conducted on July 10 for Assembly seats in West Bengal (4), Himachal Pradesh (3), Uttarakhand (2), and one each in Bihar, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.
In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is leading in all four contested seats. While the Maniktala seat was previously won by the Trinamool in the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP had secured Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Bagda, with subsequent defections to Trinamool altering the political landscape.
Himachal Pradesh‘s bypoll results are poised to impact several prominent figures, including Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife, Kamlesh Thakur, who leads against her BJP opponent in Dehra. The Congress is also ahead in two additional seats.
In Uttarakhand, the Manglaur constituency is experiencing a three-way contest following the death of BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari last October. The BJP is trailing in both Manglaur and Badrinath, constituencies historically dominated by the Congress or BSP.
Punjab‘s Jalandhar West bypoll is a critical test for Chief Minister and AAP leader Bhagwant Mann, with AAP currently leading.
In Bihar, the byelection in Rupauli was triggered by the resignation of JD(U) MLA Bima Bharti, now contesting for the Lok Sabha on an RJD ticket. The JD(U) is currently ahead.
Tamil Nadu‘s Vikravandi bypoll, necessitated by the death of DMK legislator N Pughazhendhi, features a triangular race, with DMK’s Anniyur Siva leading over PMK and Naam Tamilar Katchi candidates.
In Madhya Pradesh, the Amarwara seat bypoll, held after three-time Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah joined the BJP, sees Shah leading against Congress’s Dheeran Shah Invati and GGP’s Devraman Bhalavi.
The Assembly seats that went to polls included 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 states are governed by INDIA bloc constituents, while the rest are under BJP or NDA control.
These bypolls are the first since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP won 240 seats, 32 short of a majority, while the NDA achieved a total of 293 seats, crossing the halfway mark of 272. The Congress-led INDIA bloc secured 232 seats.
