Nomination ends for bypolls to seven assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh

The filing of nomination papers for by-elections to seven assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh ended on Friday.

"The last date for filing nominations for the bypolls ended today. The papers will be scrutinised on October 17 while October 19 is the last date for the withdrawal of nominations," a state Election Commission official said here.

As many as 132 candidates filed nominations for the seven seats. The maximum number of candidates are in fray from Naugawan Sadat with 22 aspirants while the lowest of 14 candidates are in fray from Tundla (Firozabad), he said.

Polling will be held on November 3 and the results will be declared seven days later.

The seven assembly seats include Naugawan Sadat, which fell vacant after the death of state minister Chetan Chauhan, and Ghatampur (Kanpur) where another state minister Kamal Rani Varun died, besides Tundla (Firozabad) where sitting MLA S P Singh Baghel got elected to the Lok Sabha.

Bangarmau (Unnao) seat fell vacant following the conviction of Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case.

Bulandshahr, Deoria and Malhani (Jaunpur) seats will have by-election as the respective sitting MLAs Virendra Singh Sirohi, Janmejay Singh and Parasnath Yadav (SP) died.

The BJP has fielded Sangeeta Chauhan, wife of Chetan Chauhan, in the Naugawan Sadat seat. Chetan had died in August after testing positive for coronavirus. He was an international cricketer and sports minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.

The ruling party has also fielded the wife of another deceased MLA, Virendra Singh Sirohi. Usha Sirohi will contest the bypoll in Bulandshahr on a BJP ticket.

In Bangarmau, the party has given ticket to Shrikant Katiyar. Of the seven seats going to polls, six were won by the ruling BJP in 2017.