The voting for bypolls in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh began on Sunday morning. The results for the two states will be announced on the 14th of March.
In Bihar, the voting will be held for a total of three assembly seats. The first being the Araria Lok Sabha seat after Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Mohammed Taslimuddin passed away. The Jehanabad assembly seat was left vacant after the passing of RJD lawmaker Mundrika Singh Yadav. Voting will be held for the Bhabua assembly seat since BJP’s Anand Bhushan Pandey passed away.
This is the first polls in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar left the RJD’s Grand Alliance in 2017. CM Kumar went on to join the BJP led NDA. After the voting in Araria began a complaint was filed against Bihar BJP State President Nityanand Rai. He was accused of violating the model code of conduct. The BJP leader said if Sarfaraz Alam, a RJD candidate for the Ariar seat won the polls, “Araria would become a hub of the ISI (Pakistan’s spy agency.)”
In Uttar Pradesh, two Lok Sabha seats are vacant in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. The two seats held by Chief Minister Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya were vacated by the BJP members.
The polls in Uttar Pradesh are significant as it will show the further of Samajwadi Party (SP) head by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP.) The two party leaders made a deal earlier this month. The BSP vowed to support the SP Lok Sabha candidates in today’s voting. In return the Samajwadi Party has agreed to support the BSP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections later this month.
