Bypoll Vote Counting Today: Votes will be counted on 3 Lok Sabha and 7 assembly seats today.
Votes will be counted today in three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats across five states and Delhi, where bypolls were held on June 23. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha is among the key candidates of the assembly by-election.Here's your 10-point cheatsheet to this big story:
Tripura bypolls was held on seats - Agartala, Jubarajnagar, Surma and Town Bardowali. Rajya Sabha MP Mr Saha, who contested from Town Bardowali, needs to win to continue as Chief Minister.
Lok Sabha by-elections were held in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur and Azamgarh, and Sangrur in Punjab.
The other seats where assembly bypolls were held were Rajinder Nagar in Delhi, Mandar in Jharkhand's Ranchi district and Atmakuru in Andhra Pradesh.
In Rampur, the BJP fielded Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi, who recently joined the party. Asim Raja, handpicked by Azam Khan is the Samajwadi Party candidate. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party did not contest from Rampur.
The Azamgarh seat saw a triangular contest among BJP's Dinesh Lal Yadav 'Nirhua', a Bhojpuri actor-singer; Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party's Shah Alam, also known as Guddu Jamali.
In Punjab, the AAP fielded Gurmail Singh, the party's Sangrur district in-charge; the main opposition Congress former Dhuri MLA Dalvir Singh Goldy, while the BJP candidate is former Barnala MLA Kewal Dhillon, who had joined the party on June 4.
Kamaldeep Kaur, sister of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a convict in former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh's assassination case, was fielded by the Shiromani Akali Dal. The Akali's Amritsar chief Simranjit Singh Mann is also in the contest.
The by-election in Jharkhand was necessitated after the disqualification of MLA Bandhu Tirkey after he was convicted in a corruption case. The Congress fielded his daughter, Shilpi Neha Tirkey, as the common candidate of the ruling JMM-led coalition, while the BJP nominated former MLA Gangotri Kujur in the seat. Independent candidate Dev Kumar Dhan, backed by Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), also contested the Jharkhand bypolls.
In Delhi's Rajinder Nagar, AAP's Durgesh Pathak is likely to have a close contest with BJP's Rajesh Bhatia, who had been a councillor from the area. The Congress's nominee is Prem Lata.
The by-election in Andhra Pradesh was held to fill a vacancy after Industries Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy died in February. His younger brother Vikram Reddy is the ruling YSR Congress candidate. The BJP candidate is G Bharat Kumar Yadav.
With inputs from PTI
