Tough compeititon in bypolls to 33 assembly and 3 LS seats

By-polls for 33 assembly constituencies and three Lok Sabha seats across nine states were held today. The key contests of the by-elections being the 11-assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and nine in Gujarat. There were reports of sporadic violence from the two assembly seats that went to polls in West Bengal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has put much effort to retain the 11 assembly seats that went to polls in Uttar Pradesh. Several central ministers have camped in UP over the last few weeks as the party is keen to avert the kind of reverses it witnessed in the by-polls held last month. The BJP failed to replicate its Lok Sabha success, losing several of its sitting seats in Uttarakhand, Karnataka and most famously in Bihar.

The BJP had sitting MLAs on 10 of UP's 11-seats that went to polls, while party ally Apna Dal's Anuradha Patel was MLA from the Rohaniya assembly seat. Half these seats fall in western Uttar Pradesh, which in recent months has witnessed several communal clashes. The BJP, and its chief rival Samajwadi Party, have accused each other of playing politics of communal polarization.

Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday  attacked the BJP for having promised "achhe din" or better days but losing their way to talking about "love jihad". Yadav cast his vote for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-poll. Here his cousin Tej Pratap Singh is the SP candidate against BJP's Shiv Singh Shakya in a two cornered contest. The Congress hasn't fielded a candidate, just as SP didn't during the Lok Sabha elections in Congress president Sonia and vice president Rahul Gandhi's seats in Rae Bareli and Amethi.

The Bahujan Samaj Party never contests by-elections as a policy and hasn't fielded any candidates this time either. BJP is confident that most of BSP's Dalit support base would vote for the party, as it did during the Lok Sabha elections. In May, BJP along with Apna Dal had won a historic 73 of UP's 80 Lok Sabha seats. The UP by-polls would also be a test for its controversial Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, in news for his comments on 'love jihad'. The yogi was made the party in-charge for these by-polls. The polls would also be an indicator to the assembly polls in the state in 2017

Apart from Mainpuri, the other two Lok Sabha seats that went to polls are Medak in Andhra Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujarat. SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav had vacated the Mainpuri seat, retaining his Azamgarh seat while Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated the Vadodara seat, opting to remain an MP from Varanasi. Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao quit the Medak seat.

The by-polls in Gujarat are also the first test that Modi's successor Anandiben Patel faces. The BJP filed a complaint against Congress candidates from Maninagar and Anand assembly seats for breaching the model code of conduct as they wearing scarves with Congress symbol when they cast their votes.

The other key contest is in Rajasthan where the new Congress state unit chief Sachin Pilot has worked hard to prove his mettle. Four assembly seats went to polls in Rajasthan, three in Assam, two in West Bengal, one each in Tripura, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Stray incidents of violence were reported from Chowringhee and Basirhat Dakshin assembly seats in West Bengal. Both the BJP and the CPI(M) accused ruling Trinamool Congress workers of attacking their cadres. The polls are being held with several Trinamool members under the shadow of the Saradha scam. At least one party leader, Rajat Majumder, has been arrested by the CBI. Trinamool's candidate from Chowringhee is party leader Sudip Bandyopadhya's actress wife Nayana.

On an average 50 per cent polling was recorded in nearly all the assembly and parliamentary constituency that went to polls today. Manu (ST) constituency in Tripura was an exception with 87%polling.