Lucknow/Patna: Voting began today morning for the by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur - the two parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh while people have also lined up to cast their votes in Araria Lok Sabha constituency.
Along with the three Lok Sabh seats, by-elections are also held in Jehanabad and Bhabua assembly constituencies in Bihar. In Phulpur and Gorakhpur, the opposition parties have joined hands and have fielded joint candidates against the ruling BJP. Likewise, the ruling alliance of JD(U) and BJP are facing joint opposition candidates in Araria, Jehanabad and Bhabua.
Gorakhpur is the parliamentary constituency and stronghold of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Similarly, Phulpur is the parliamentary constituency of Keshav Prasad Maurya. Adityanath and Maurya both resigned from the parliament to become Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, thus necessitating the by-elections, scheduled to be held on March 11, 2018.
Around 40 candidates have filed their nomination papers for the by-polls to these seats, including BJP candidates Upendra Shukla and Kaushalendra Singh Patel, Samajwadi Party’s Pravin Nishad and Nagendra Singh Patel, and Congress candidates Sureetha Kareem and Manish Mishra. The BSP has extended its support to the SP candidates in both the seats whereas there are reports of tacit understanding of the Congress with the SP.
In Gorakhpur parliamentary constituency, there are 970 polling centres and 2141 polling booths, while in Phulpur, there are 793 polling centres and 2059 polling booths. There 19.61 lakh voters in Phulpur parliamentary constituency, while there are 19.49 lakh electorate for Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat. As many as 4,728 Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines are being used in the bypoll and provisions for webcasting from 95 critical booths have been made, according to the Election Commission.
In Araria, RJD’s Sarfaraz Alam, son of deceased MP Taslimuddin is contesting against BJP’s Pradip Singh while in Jehanabad the fight is between RJD’s Suday Yadav, son of deceased MLA Mundrika Singh Yadav, and JD(U)’s Abhiram Sharma. The Bhabua seat is witnessing a straight contest between BJP’s Rinki Pandey and Congress’ Shambhu Singh Patel.
Voting for all the seats will be held between 7 am and 5 pm. The results will be declared on March 14.
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