It is a sea of men clad in veshtis with distinctive party colour border design seeking votes with a smile and folded hands for their party candidates. The town is abuzz, with electioneering at its peak, and teeming trendy cars criss-cross the busy roads and bylanes bringing in more and more leaders from elsewhere for campaign.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Banerjee, who lost the election in Nandigram, has to win this bypoll to retain the chief minister's post.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and MP Ramgopal Yadav accompanied 44-year-old Dimple during the filing of nomination papers at the District Magistrate's office in Mainpuri.
Panneerselvam indicated that he would support the move but laid down certain conditions, he said without divulging them. "I hope the two factions would sort out the differences soon," Annamalai said.
The BJP registered emphatic victories in seven municipal corporations in Haryana, while its nominees were leading in two other civic bodies in the recently held elections. The Congress, which was hoping to improve its electoral fortunes after a defeat in the 2024 Assembly polls, suffered another setback. The BJP candidates won with large margins in Faridabad, Gurugram, Hisar, Karnal, Rohtak, Sonipat, and Ambala. The BJP was also leading in Yamunanagar and Panipat. In Manesar, an Independent candidate, Inderjeet Yadav, won the mayoral election. The results are seen as a major setback for the Congress, which has been facing internal turmoil and factionalism.
Parties like the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Mahaan Dal, and Janvadi Party-Socialist had distanced themselves from the SP after its defeat in the 2022 state assembly elections.
Congress candidate Elangovan secured 1,10,156 votes (64.58 per cent), which is 20.29 per cent more than the 2021 assembly election as the then INC candidate secured 66,300 votes and won the seat.
The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
The Thackeray faction on Tuesday claimed that voters were being paid to choose None Of The Above or NOTA option.
Rutuja Latke, the candidate of 'Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray' party for the upcoming Andheri (east) bypoll, on Wednesday moved the Bombay high court seeking a direction to the Mumbai civic body to accept her resignation as its employee.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
A controversy has erupted after Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's son, Kartikey, said during a public meeting in bypoll-bound Budhni that 'not even a brick will be laid in any village' in case a Congress candidate wins the by-election.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
Thackeray said he is 100 per cent confident that Latke will get the votes of the Maha Vikas Aghadi constituents.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday cruised to her maiden electoral victory, from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, with a margin of over 4.1 lakh votes against Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front's Sathyan Mokeri, according to figures released by the Election Commission.
According to the police, the Congress leaders, including the party candidate Mukesh Malhotra, organised a public meeting on the Morena-Shivpuri highway instead of the Mandi campus for which they were granted permission.
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), secured a comfortable win in the bypoll to Andheri (East) Assembly seat in Mumbai on Sunday, while votes polled in favour of the None of the Above (NOTA) option obtained the second position.
The Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena is set to meet the Election Commission on Friday to stake claim for the party's 'bow and arrow' poll symbol ahead of the Andheri East assembly bypoll in Maharashtra.
The SP's Uttar Pradesh president Naresh Uttam will, however, continue to remain in his position.
While the term of the Maharashtra assembly ends on November 26, that of Jharkhand ends on January 5 next year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party announced on Saturday that Navya Haridas, a two-time councillor in the Kozhikode Corporation, will be the National Democratic Alliance candidate for the Wayanad Lok Sabha by-election.
Among the seven seats which witnessed a stiff contest between the BJP and the regional parties, the saffron party held three and the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each.
The election agent of the candidate, Brahmanand Netam, said he has submitted a reply to the Jharkhand police on the leader's behalf stating Netam is busy with electioneering.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asserted that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will return to power with a two-thirds majority in the 2026 Assembly elections in the state and ruled out the possibility of stitching any alliance with the Congress. Banerjee's statement comes amidst speculation over a possible Congress-TMC understanding in West Bengal, following the removal of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as state Congress president and the appointment of Subhankar Sarkar. However, Banerjee has categorically stated that the TMC will fight alone and secure a historic victory. The Congress, on the other hand, has responded by saying that regional parties are bothered about the Congress because they have realised their mistake in ignoring the party during the Delhi polls. The BJP has downplayed Banerjee's remarks, stating that the TMC's defeat in the upcoming elections is inevitable. The West Bengal Assembly elections are likely to be held in April-May next year.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday won the bypoll to the Champawat assembly seat defeating Congress' Nirmala Gahtori by a record margin of over 55,000 votes to retain his office.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
The Rampur assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh which fell vacant following the disqualification of SP leader Mohammad Azam Khan is one of the five seats going for the bypolls.
The Election Commission of India has announced that the Delhi Assembly elections will be held on February 5, 2023, with the counting of votes scheduled for February 8. The last date to file nominations is January 17, and the scrutiny of nominations will be done by January 18. Candidates can withdraw their nominations until January 20.
The young and suave candidate of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Bhavya Bishnoi, looks to defend his 'family bastion' for five decades, while the main opposition Congress has placed its bet on veteran leader Jai Prakash in the Adampur bypoll in Haryana.
Bypoll to the Bhabanipur assembly seat in West Bengal, from where chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee plans to contest, would be held on September 30, the Election Commission announced on Saturday.
BSP chief Mayawati removed her nephew Akash Anand from all party posts and said that she will not name her successor till she is alive. In a slew of other significant changes in the BSP leadership announced at a high-level meeting of the party's office-bearers from across the country, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and Ramji Gautam as national coordinators. Mayawati also criticized the budgets of both the central and Uttar Pradesh governments, saying they were "unrealistic" and detached from ground realities.
The counting of votes will take place on November 2.
Tiruvarur is one of the worst-hit districts in the Cauvery delta region of Tamil Nadu due to severe cyclonic storm Gaja in November, 2018.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress on Sunday were set to share the honours in the Lok Sabha and assembly bye-elections in 13 states.
A senior EC official said the COVID-19 pandemic and the flood situation were two reasons behind the decision.
