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New Delhi: As the first electoral contest post Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, voting for the by-elections to five Assembly seats across Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Kerala began amid tight security arrangements on Thursday.
The polling started at 7 a.m. and will continue till 6 p.m.
The seats where polling is underway are Kaliganj in West Bengal, Nilambur in Kerala, Ludhiana West in Punjab, and Kadi and Visavadar in Gujarat.
Polling commenced amid tight security arrangements, including the deployment of central security forces and police, along with live monitoring of the by-election process through an extensive webcasting system.
The counting of votes will be held on June 23.
The fact that Assembly elections are due in two of the states — Kerala and West Bengal early next year — makes this mini electoral contest all the more interesting.
Ludhiana West bypoll
The Ludhiana West Assembly seat fell vacant after the passing of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January. The by-election is expected to see a multi-cornered contest, with key political players — the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Congress, BJP, and Shiromani Akali Dal, competing fiercely for dominance in this urban constituency.
There are a total of 14 candidates in the fray and 1,75,469 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise – 85,371 of them women and 10 belonging to the third gender. A total of 194 polling stations are there for the bypoll with 100 per cent live webcasting of polling stations, officials said.
The ruling AAP has fielded Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora for the bypoll. Arora (61) is a Ludhiana-based industrialist and is also known for his social welfare work.
The Congress has placed its bet on former Minister and Punjab Congress Working President Bharat Bhushan Ashu (51). Ashu had been MLA twice from this seat in 2012 and 2017. He was defeated by Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Assembly polls.
The BJP has fielded the party’s senior leader Jiwan Gupta. He is a member of the core committee of the Punjab BJP. He had earlier remained the party’s state general secretary. SAD named Parupkar Singh Ghuman as its candidate for the bypoll. Ghuman is a lawyer and the former president of Ludhiana Bar Association.
Nilambur Assembly bypoll
The by-election for the Nilambur Assembly constituency in Kerala was necessitated after Anvar resigned as MLA of the constituency following his severing of ties with the CPI(M)-led LDF over certain allegations by him against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his close aides. Among the 10, the key contenders are ruling LDF pick M. Swaraj, Aryadan Shoukath (Congress-led UDF), Trinamool Congress state convener and independent candidate P V Anvar and Mohan George of the BJP-led NDA.
People began arriving early on Thursday morning at the 263 polling booths across the constituency, which has more than 2.32 lakh voters who will elect their representative from among 10 candidates.
The final voter list includes 1,13,613 men, 1,18,760 women and eight transgender persons, with 7,787 first-time voters, 373 overseas voters, and 324 service voters.
Kaliganj Assembly bypolls
The bypoll is shaping up to be a triangular contest among the Trinamool Congress (TMC), BJP, and the Congress-Left alliance, with identity politics, post-Murshidabad riot anxieties and a nationalist surge after Operation Sindoor set to dominate the electoral discourse.
The by-election to the Kaliganj Assembly seat in West Bengal’s Nadia district was necessitated by the sudden demise of Trinamool Congress MLA Nasiruddin Ahamed in February. His daughter Alifa is the Trinamool Congress nominee. The BJP has fielded Ashis Ghosh as its candidate, while Congress nominee Kabil Uddin Shaikh has got the support of the CPI(M).
Visavadar and Kadi bypolls
Bypolls for the Visavadar and Kadi Assembly seats in Gujarat began at 7 a.m. and will continue until 8 p.m., with voting taking place at 294 polling stations in each constituency. Both seats are set for a three-way contest, as the BJP, Congress, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have fielded their respective candidates.
The Visavadar Assembly seat in Gujarat’s Junagadh district has been vacant since December 2023, following the resignation of AAP MLA Bhupendra Bhayani, who later joined the ruling BJP.
For the bypoll, the BJP has nominated Kirit Patel, while Congress has fielded Nitin Ranpariya. AAP’s former Gujarat president, Gopal Italia, is also in the fray, setting up a three-way contest.
Notably, the BJP hasn’t won the Visavadar seat since 2007, but party leaders are optimistic about ending the 18-year drought. In the 2022 Assembly elections, Bhupendra Bhayani had defeated BJP’s Harshad Ribadiya, formerly with the Congress, by a margin of 7,063 votes.
The Kadi seat, located in Mehsana district and reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates, became vacant on February 4 following the death of BJP MLA Karsan Solanki. The BJP has fielded Rajendra Chavda, while Congress has nominated former MLA Ramesh Chavda, who had won the seat in 2012 but lost to Solanki in 2017.
AAP is also contesting the seat with Jagdish Chavda as its candidate. Similar to Visavadar, Kadi is witnessing a triangular fight among the BJP, Congress, and AAP.
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