Assembly Bypolls Underway in Five Key Constituencies of Four States

Polling began at 7 am in five key constituencies in four states on Thursday, 19 June. Polling went on peacefully at Visavadar and Kadi in Gujarat, Ludhiana West in Punjab, Kaliganj in West Bengal and Nilambur in Kerala. In West Bengal, tensions had to be resolved in the Kaliganj Assembly seat in Nadia, where the Congress party alleged forcible removal of its polling agent by Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers. The TMC denied the charge.

Votes will be counted on 23 June. These are the first elections in the tenure of Gyanesh Kumar as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) who took charge in February.

Byelections in Gujarat

The Visavadar and Kadi seats have 294 polling stations each. Polling here will continue until 6 pm. The BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have fielded candidates in both constituencies.

In the first four hours of polling, the seats recorded a turnout of 28.15 per cent and 23.85 per cent in Visavadar and Kadi, respectively.

The Visavadar seat is in the Junagadh district and has been vacant since December 2023, after then AAP legislator, Bhupendra Bhayani, resigned and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP has nominated Kirit Patel for the bypoll, while Nitin Ranpariya is the Congress candidate and AAP’s former Gujarat president, Gopal Italia, is also fighting for the seat.

Vasavadar is a significant seat as the BJP has not won here since 2007 despite dominating the state’s politics. BJP leaders hope to break this eighteen-year losing streak this year.

The Kadi seat in the Mehsana district is reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates. This seat has been vacant since February 4 when BJP Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Karsan Solanki died.

The candidates contesting are Rajendra Chavda of the BJP, Ramesh Chavda of the Congress party and Jagdish Chavda of the AAP.

Byelection in West Bengal

Polling under tight security arrangements will go on till 5 pm and 45 per cent voters turned up to vote in the first six hours. Fourteen central forces’ companies have been deployed in the Kaliganj constituency. Tensions flared at a booth after Congress party workers levelled charges against the ruling TMC.

The by-election in this constituency follows the demise of TMC MLA Nasiruddin Ahamed in February. Alifa Ahamed, his daughter, is contesting as the TMC nominee. Other contestants are Ashis Ghosh of the BJP and Kabil Uddin Shaikh of the Congress party, who is backed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Byelection in Kerala

Live monitoring of the election process through an extensive webcasting system has recorded a 46.73 per cent voter turnout in the first six hours of voting since 7 am.

Among ten contenders, key are ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) pick M Swaraj, Aryadan Shoukath (Congress-led United Democratic Front or UDF), TMC state convener and independent candidate PV Anvar and Mohan George of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Byelection in Punjab

Byelections became necessary in Ludhiana West after the seat fell vacant in January due to the passing away of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi. Polling here will continue until 6 pm, again amidst tight security. In the first four hours, the voter turnout was a mere 21.5%. Fourteen candidates are in the fray, including AAP’s Sanjeev Arora, Congress party’s Bharat Bhushan Ashu, and BJP nominee Jiwan Gupta.