New Delhi, India: Polling for three Lok Sabha and 33 assembly seats across nine states of India began on this morning. This is second major byelection since the Narendra Modi led BJP government captured power in India. The three Lok Sabha bypolls are Vadodara (Gujarat), Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh) and Medak (Telangana). Uttar Pradesh is also hosting byelection for 11 state assembly seats. Polling is also being conducted for nine seats in Gujarat, four in Rajasthan, two in West Bengal, five in Assam, Tripura and Sikkim and one each in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
Analysts are looking to see which way the wind blows in the bypolls spread across these nine states. The by-polls are being seen as an indicator of the popularity of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition parties ahead of four assembly elections likely by the end of the year.
The results of two Lok Sabha seats — Vadodara which was vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Medak in Telangana was vacated by Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief and chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao — are unlikely to throw any surprises. But Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s prestige is at stake in his home turf Mainpuri, the third Lok Sabha seat.
The results of bypoll inUttar Pradesh are expected to be major indicators about the future of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP swept to power on the back of a so-called Modi wave this summer, but failed to maintain the momentum in last month’s by-elections in four states where it lost a majority of seats to the Congress party and its allies.
The BJP and its allies together won only eight of the 18 seats that went to the polls while the Congress and its allies won 10.