Uttar Pradesh Bypoll Results Today
Voting commenced on Wednesday for bypolls in Uttar Pradesh amidst complaints by Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav against police officials checking voter IDs and Aadhar cards and preventing certain sections, hinting at Muslims and Yadavs, from exercising their right to vote. Taking the complaints into account, the Election Commission directed the suspension of five police personnel in the state for violating its guidelines. Meanwhile, the BJP raised concerns about identity verification of burqa-clad women voters.
The bypoll elections mark the first electoral challenge for both the INDIA alliance and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). While the Congress has extended its support for the Samajwadi Party instead of contesting, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting in all nine seats.
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Exit polls for UP’s nine assembly by-elections predict significant gains for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA),
The assembly elections in the state are significant, especially after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where the INDIA alliance won 43 of the 80 parliamentary seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) won 37 while the Congress won 6 seats.
Out of the nine, eight seats fell vacant after the incumbent MLAs’ election to the Lok Sabha and one SP leader’s conviction in a criminal case.
In a surprise outcome, even for the parties, the NDA, which won an impressive 66 seats in the 2019 general elections, fell down drastically with only 36 seats in the Lok Sabha polls this year. The BJP, led by CM Yogi Adityanath, won 33 seats out of these.
The byelections remain crucial and will test whether the INDIA alliance, especially the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP, will continue its general election momentum or if the Modi-Yogi remains a winning combination.
Polling took place in Katehari, Meerapur, Karhal, Ghaziabad, Sisamau, Majhawan, Phulpur, Khair, and Kundarki. A total of 90 candidates contested the elections, with the highest number, 14, recorded in Ghaziabad.
In the 2022 UP assembly elections, the SP won four seats—Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, and Kundarki—while the BJP secured four seats—Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, and Khair. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an SP ally then, won Meerapur.
In Karhal, Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin and former MP Tej Pratap Yadav is contesting from the family stronghold against BJP’s Anujesh Yadav. While Akhilesh Yadav won the assembly seat in 2022, a bypoll was required after he won from Kannauj in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Wife of disqualified SP MLA Irfan Solanki, who won the seat in 2022, Naseem Solanki is the SP candidate from Sisamau in Kanpur Nagar. The seat fell vacant after Irfan Solanki was disqualified following his conviction in a criminal case. The BJP has nominated Suresh Awasthi from the seat.
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Other notable assembly seats include Ghaziabad, which recorded the lowest voter turnout (33 percent), where BJP’s Sanjeev Sharma faces SP’s Singh Raj Jatav, and SP’s former MLA Haji Mohd Rizwan vs. BJP’s Ramveer Thakur from the Kundarki seat.
In Meerapur, the SP candidate Sumbul Rana faces BSP leader Munkad Ali and BJP ally RLD’s Mithilesh Pal. In Khair, Dr. Charu Kain from SP will face off against BJP candidate Surendra Diler.
