New Delhi:
The counting of votes for the by-polls to two Lok Sabha seats – one each in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh – and 14 assembly seats across 11 states will be held today. The results will be out along with those of the state assembly elections.
Here are the top 10 updates on bypoll election results 2021:
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Karnataka voted in the bypolls to one Lok Sabha and two assembly seats on April 17. Two of the seats had fallen vacant after the incumbents died of Covid. The Belagavi Lok Sabha constituency was held by the BJP’s Suresh Angadi, who was the Minister of State for Railways at the time of his death due to the virus last year. Mr Angadi’s wife Mangala Suresh is the BJP candidate in the constituency. Her main opponent is the Congress’s Satish Jarkiholi – a sitting MLA from Yamkanmardi and a member of the wealthy and influential Jarkiholi family. He is the brother of Ramesh Jarkiholi, former Karnataka minister who had resigned after a controversy involving an alleged sex-for-job video clip.
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Karnataka’s Maski assembly seat in Raichur district was with the Congress. Its MLA, Pratapgouda Patil, quit the party and is now the BJP candidate. His opponent is the Congress’s Basavanagoud Turihal.
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The Basavakalyan assembly seat in Karnataka’s Bidar district was also held earlier by the Congress’s Narayan Rao, who died of Covid. The Congress candidate is his wife, Mala. She took on the BJP’s Sharanu Salagar and the JD(S)’s Syed Yasrab Ali Qadri.
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In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, by-election in the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat was necessitated after the death of the sitting YSR Congress M, Balli Durgaprasada Rao, from Covid last September. The BJP candidate is Ratnaprabha, who was former chief secretary of Karnataka and joined the party recently. Panabaka Lakshmi represented N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
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In Madhya Pradesh’s by-election for the Damoh assembly seat was held on April 17. The ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in the state are locked in a battle in the constituency. Out of the 22 candidates, the main contest is between Rahul Lodhi of the BJP and Ajay Tandon of the Congress. The bypoll was necessitated as Mr Lodhi, who had won from Damoh on a Congress ticket in 2018, resigned from the assembly as well as the party in October last year and joined the BJP.
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Telangana’s Nagarjunasagar assembly seat went into by-election after sitting Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLA Nomula Narsimhaiah died last December. It is suspected that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao contracted Covid during a public meeting held on the eve of bypoll. Besides the Chief Minister, 60 others who attended the meeting tested positive.
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Assembly bypolls were held in Rajasthan’s Sahada (Bhilwara), Sujangarh (Churu) and Rajsamand. The three seats were represented by Kailsh Trivedi, Master Bhanwarlal Meghwal (both from the Congress) and Kiran Maheshari (BJP), respectively. Master Bhanwarlal Meghwal, who was the social justice and empower minister in the state government, had died due to a brain stroke. Kailash Trivedi and Kiran Maheshwari died from coronavirus last year.
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Assembly by-elections were also held in three seats in Rajasthan, one each in Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha and Uttarakhand.
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In Maharashtra’s Pandharpur assembly seat, Sharad Pawar’s NCP fielded Bhagirath Bhalake, the son of the MLA who died. The BJP fielded Samadhan Mahadev Uthadev. The BJP fielded Nimishaben Manharsinh Suthar as its Gujurat’s Morwa Hadaf assembly seat.
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The gigantic counting exercise is being held at a time when India is seeing a savage explosion of coronavirus cases, a crisis that has crippled the country’s public healthcare system. The Election Commission of India has banned all victory processions today as well as even after the counting of votes amid the COVID-19 surge.