The INDIA bloc is leading in 10 out of 13 Assembly seats while the Aam Aadmi Party has won the Jalandhar West Assembly constituency. The results of by-polls in 13 Assembly seats will be declared on Saturday, making it the first test for the NDA and INDIA bloc after the Lok Sabha elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, is leading from one seat.
By-elections were held in 13 Assembly seats across seven states, the voting for which was concluded on July 10.
The polls were held in: Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh.
The seats that went to poll were: Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Maniktala in West Bengal; Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh.
Three of these states are ruled by the BJP or NDA ally parties while the rest are governed by INDIA bloc parties.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha polls, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes, including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s wife Kamlesh Thakur.
Barring some incidents of violence in Bihar, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, polling went on peacefully.
In Uttarakhand’s Manglaur constituency, four people were injured in a clash between supporters of rival parties at a polling booth. Roorkee Civil Line Kotwali in-charge R K Saklani told PTI that a report was received about the clash at booth number 53-54 in Libbarheri in Manglaur.
What do the trends show so far?
According to the Election Commission, early trends as of noon show:
In Bihar’s Rupauli, Independent candidate Shankar Singh is leading.
In Himachal Pradesh’s Dehra, Kamlesh Thakur from Congress is leading. BJP’s Ashish Sharma is leading from Hamirpur and Hardeep Singh Bawa is ahead in the Nalagarh seat.
In MP’s Amarwara, Congress’ Dheeran Sah Sukharam Das is leading.
In Jalandhar West, Mohinder Bhagat from the Aam Aadmi Party has won.
In Tamil Nadu’s Vikravandi, DMK’s Anniyur Siva is leading.
In both the Uttarakhand seats – Badrinath and Manglaur — that have gone to poll, candidates from the Congress party are leading.
In West Bengal, candidates from Trinamool Congress are leading in Raiganj, Bagda and Maniktala while counting is in progress in Ranaghat Dakshin.
With inputs from agencies
Link to article –
