UP bypoll results live: Counting for Mainpuri LS, Rampur, Khatauli seats from 8am

UP bypoll election results 2022 live updates: Counting of votes will be held for the high-profile Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, Rampur and Khatauli seats in Uttar Pradesh today. Counting of votes shall be taken up for postal ballots first at 8am and EVMs after its completion. Mainpuri bypoll results, Khatauli byelection results and Rampur bypoll results will be announced round-wise. In Mainpuri, Samajwadi Party is locked in a battle for prestige with the BJP. A high-stakes contest was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri seat, where the by-election was necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October, and in Rampur Sadar seat that fell vacant due to senior SP leader Azam Khan's disqualification. Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is the SP candidate in Mainpuri, a pocket borough of the Yadav family, while BJP has fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidant of Mulayam's brother Shivpal Singh Yadav. A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls. With the Congress and the BSP keeping away from the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, it would be a direct fight between the BJP and Samajwadi Party and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in all three places. In Khatauli, which was a hotbed of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in western Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is trying to retain the seat by fielding Rajkumari Saini. She is the wife of Vikram Singh Saini who was disqualified from the assembly after his conviction and sentence of two years imprisonment by a district court in a 2013 riots case. RLD candidate Madan Bhaiya, a four-term MLA, had won his last election almost 15 years ago, followed by three consecutive defeats in assembly polls in 2012, 2017 and 2022 from Loni in Ghaziabad. Stay with TOI for all the latest updates:

from Times of India https://ift.tt/tXEsHxU