Bypolls for UP, Bihar to be held today

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): The Lok Sabha by-election for two constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, namely Gorakhpur and Phulpur, will be held today.

The bypoll was necessitated after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated their seats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, respectively, on taking office.

For Gorakhpur, the key contenders are Upendra Shukla from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Praveen Nishad from Samajwadi Party (SP) and Surhita Chatterjee Karim from Congress.

Meanwhile, candidates in the fray for the Phulpur seat are Kaushalendra Singh Patel from the BJP, Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel from SP and Manish Mishra from Congress.

For these bypolls, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the SP have set aside their rivalry to join forces.

On the same day, the by-election for Bihar's Lok Sabha Araria seat and two assembly seats -Jehanabad and Bhabua- will also be held.

The bypolls are seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after he pulled out of the state's Grand Alliance and joined the BJP.

The Araria seat fell vacant after the death of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Taslimuddin. The key contenders for the seat are RJD's Sarafaraz Alam, Taslimuddin's son, and the BJP's Pradip Singh.

The Bhabua assembly seat got vacant after the death of BJP's Anand Bhushan Pandey, and the party has fielded his widow Rinki Rani Pandey. Another key candidate for the seat is Shambhu Patel from Congress.

The death of RJD MLA Mundrika Singh Yadav necessitated the bypoll for Jehanabad seat, and his son Uday Yadav is contesting for the seat. Another key candidate in the fray is JDU's Abhiram Sharma.

The results for both states will be declared on March 14.