Bypolls in 3 Lok Sabha, 33 Assembly seats in 10 states: Will Narendra Modi magic work?

New Delhi/Ahmedabad/Kolkata: Voting for byelections to 33 assembly seats across nine states and three Lok Sabha seats in three states began on Saturday.

The results are crucial for both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition parties who are yet to recover from the massive mauling in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Vadodara, Mulayam Singh Yadav from Mainpuri and K. Chandrashekhara Rao from Medak Lok Sabha seats have necessitated the bypolls.

Read: Medak LS, Nandigama Assembly seat: Polling underway, Rs 1 crore and 5000 litres liquor seized

Uttar Pradesh

Stakes are high for BJP in Uttar Pradesh after the saffron party's near-total sweep of the 80 seats in Lok Sabha polls just four months ago while Trinamool Congress battles to retain two assembly seats in West Bengal in the face of Saradha chit fund scam that has already ensnared some of its leaders.

If retaining Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, vacated by SP supremo Mualayam Singh Yadav who had won from two LS seats including Azamgarh, is a matter of prestige for his party, BJP faces the challenge of holding on to the 11 assembly seats won earlier by the party. BJP chief Amit Shah also faces the challenge in the bypolls in UP as he is considered the main strategist behind the party's stupendous success in last Lok Sabha poll.

SP is going all out to retain Mainpuri where the bypoll would mark the launch of Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, the gennext of the extended of Mulayam Singh Yadav family. Tej is the grandson of SP chief's elder brother. The challenge for SP is not just to win the seat again but also to maintain the big margin with which Mulayama had romped home.

Read: Brisk polling in Uttar Pradesh, litmus test for BJP’s Yogi Adityanath

In Mainpuri, BSP and Congress have not fielded their candidates, leaving a straight contest between Tej Pratap Singh and BJP's Shiv Singh Shakya.

While BSP, which drew a blank in Lok Sabha polls, is not contesting the byelections, Congress and SP have fielded candidates in all the 11 assembly seats and BJP is contesting in 10 and its ally Apna Dal in one.

The 11 assembly seats in UP, whose outcome may be a pointer to which way the political wind is blowing in the run up to 2017 assembly polls, are Saharanpur Nagar, Noida, Thakurdwara, Bijnor, Nighasan, Balha, Sirathu, Rohaniya, Hamirpur, Charkhari and Lucknow East. All of these were vacated by BJP MLAs who won the Lok Sabha elections.

Gujarat

Polling was being held on Saturday in by-election to nine Assembly seat and Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency, vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to the Election Commission, 7.01 per cent people cast their franchise till 9 am.

Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, where by-election was necessitated as Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated the seat after winning with huge margin, witnessed 5.76 per cent voters turn out till 9 am.

The nine Assembly seats where polling is underway are Maninagar, Anand, Limkheda, Deesa, Matar, Talaja, Tankara, Khambhalia and Mangrol.

Voter turn our at assembly seat of Deesa was registered at 4.44 per cent in Banaskantha, Maninagar recorded 3.67 per cent in Ahmedabad city, Tankara 14.37 per cent in Rajkot, Khambhalia 10.99 per cent in Jamnagar, Mangrol 10.5 per cent, Talaja 9.5 per cent in Junagadh, Anand 7.54 per cent in Anand district and Limkheda registered 6.25 per cent.

45 candidates are in fray for the assembly seats and 4 for the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat.

By-polls were necessitated on these seats as sitting BJP MLAs resined from their posts after winning Lok Sabha election of 2014, including Modi, who also vacated Maninagar seat as sitting MLA.

Though all these seats were earlier held by BJP, Congress is hoping to make a dent this time by leveraging the absence of Modi in Gujarat.

The elections are also seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister Anandi Patel, who along with local BJP leaders held whirlwind campaigns in all the nine seats in last one week.

Maninagar constituency, which was represented by Modi thrice when he served as Gujarat's Chief Minister, witnessed a tepid voter turn out of only 3.6 per cent in the first two hours.

Elsewhere also, including Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, less number of voters ventured to cast their voters during the early hours of voting.

Polls for Assembly seats

Besides, these three high profile Lok Sabha seats, voting began for 33 Assembly seats across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam, Gujarat, Tripura, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Sikkim.

In highly polarised Uttar Pradesh, 11 Assembly seats went for bypolls. Out of 11 seats, 10 seats were held by the BJP, which literally swept the Lok Sabha polls. In Rajasthan, four Assembly seats went to the polls.

In Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat 9 Assembly seats went for bypolls along with Vadodara Lok Sabha seat. In Assam, three seats went to bypolls. In West Bengal two seats went for bypolls. In Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Sikkim, one seat each went for bypolls.

West Bengal

Brisk voting was recorded in the first two hours of polling in the by-elections to the two assembly constituencies - Chowringhee and Basirhat Dakshin - in West Bengal, poll officials said.

"The voting in both the constituencies has been peaceful. There has been no instances of violence. In Basirhat Dakshin, 21 per cent voting was recorded, where as in Chowringhee 9 per cent voting was recorded in first two hours," said Amitjyoti Bhattacharya an election department official.

Bhattacharya said one or two instances of EVM machines not working was reported and action was taken immediately.

Read: Polling begins for bypolls in West Bengal

The fate of a total 14 candidates in the fray would be decided in the by-elections, nine in the city's prestigious Chowringhee seat and five in the Basirhat Dakshin constituency in North 24-Parganas district bordering Bangladesh.

Chowringhee seat was won by Sikha Mitra of Trinamool Congress in the 2011 Assembly elections. The by-election was needed due to resignation of Mitra from the TMC.

The Trinamool has fielded Nayna Bandyopadhyay, wife of party leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay, from the Chowringhee Assembly segment while the BJP has put up Ritesh Tiwari. Santosh Pathak is the Congress candidate and Faiyaz Ahmed Khan is the CPI(M) nominee from the seat.

Basirhat Dakshin Assembly seat was won by CPI(M)'s Narayan Mukhopadhyay in 2011. The by-election was caused due to his death.

Former footballer Dipendu Biswas is the Trinamool candidate while BJP has fielded Samik Bhattacharya.

Asit Majumder and Mrinal Chakrabarty are contesting from Basirhat Dakshin as Congress and CPI(M) candidates respectively.

The Assembly by-election is being regarded as an acid test for the ruling TMC in the backdrop of its MPs and functionaries being questioned and arrested by the CBI in connection with multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.     

Rajasthan

In Rajasthan, Weir in Bharatpur, Nasirabad in Ajmer, Surajgarh in Jhunjhunu and Kota South, will elect new MLAs as Congress seeks to recover from its worst performance ever of 21 seats in Rajasthan assembly and BJP pulls all the stops to ensure its historic tally of 163 of the 200 assembly seats. After its poor show in LS poll, Congress again faces challenge in Assam against BJP as well as perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal's All India United Democratic Front. The three assembly seats up for grab are Lakhipur, Silchar and Jamunamukh.

The votes will be counted on September 16.

Read: Assembly polls: Maharashtra, Haryana to vote on October 15

These bypolls are being dubbed as an acid test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP has not fared very well in the bypolls held in the last few weeks after the party's huge success in the Lok Sabha elections.

BJP candidates lost all the three bypolls in Uttarakhand and could bag only four out of the 10 seats in Bihar while losing one crucial seat each to Congress in Karnataka and MP. If the BJP loses some of the seats where voting will take place on September 13, it will be seen as yet another sign of the waning Modi wave.

Chhattisgarh: Voting underway for Antagarh assembly seat

Raipur: Voting is underway amid tight security for bypoll to the lone insurgency-hit Antagarh assembly constituency in Chhattisgarh where only two candidates are in the fray.

"The polling began for Antagarh seat from 7 am," an election official told PTI. As many as 1,51,894 electorates will be exercising their franchise at 202 polling stations, including 190 hyper sensitive and three auxiliary booths, till 3 pm, he said.

Around 10,000 security personnel have been deployed in the region to ensure fair and peaceful polling. The tribal dominated seat fell vacant after BJP MLA Vikram Usendi resigned following his election to the Lok Sabha from Kanker.

It is for the first time since the state formation, that Chhattisgarh will not witness a fierce battle between the BJP and Congress in the assembly poll, as the Opposition candidate withdrew from the contest at the last moment, ensuring near victory to the ruling BJP nominee Bhojraj Naag.

After the declaration of the bypoll schedule, the Congress, which had been struggling after a humiliating defeat in both Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections in the state, had declared Manturam Pawar as its candidate from the seat, anticipating a good show. However, Pawar surprisingly pulled out from the contest a day before the last day of withdrawal of nominations on August 29 for the bypoll, after which he was expelled from Congress.

Fourteen candidates had filed their nominations for the Antagarh bypoll and after scrutiny as well as withdrawal of nominations, only two candidates -- Bhojraj of the BJP and Rupdhar Pudo of Ambedkarite Party of India were left in the fray.