On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to vote in large numbers for one Lok Sabha seat in Punjab and four assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Meghalaya.
“There are by-polls happening for a Parliamentary seat in Punjab and for Assembly seats in Meghalaya, Odisha and UP. Urging voters in those constituencies to exercise their franchise in large numbers,” PM Modi tweeted. Bypolls are underway in the assembly constituencies of Swar and Chhanbey in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.
Voting for the bypoll began in the Odisha assembly constituencies of Jharsuguda and Meghalaya assembly constituencies of Sohiong. On Wednesday, voting for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat will also take place.
On May 13, the votes for the bypolls will be counted alongside Karnataka.
Following the death of Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary, the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat became vacant. In January of this year, Chaudhary died after suffering a cardiac arrest while participating in party leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra between the towns of Phillaur and Goraya.
The seat is likely to be contested by the AAP, BJP, Congress, and Shiromani Akali Dal.
In Meghalaya, a bypoll was called due to the death of UDP candidate HDR Lyngdoh just days before the state assembly elections on February 27.
The high point will be the contest in Swar, which was previously held by Abdullah Azam Khan, the son of prominent SP politician Azam Khan. Bypolls in the Swar assembly seat were required after Abdullah Azam Khan was sentenced to two years in prison by a Moradabad court in a fifteen-year-old case.
While the seat in Chhanbey in Mirzapur became vacant after Apna Dal (Sonelal) MLA Rahul Prakash Kol died in February.
