Counting of votes in the Dadra and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha constituency, where byelection was held on October 30, will begin at 8:30 AM on Tuesday. A voter turnout of 75 per cent was recorded in this constituency, reserved for ST, which is a part of the Union Territory of Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The number of registered voters in this constituency is 2.58 lakh, Election Commission officials said on Monday.
The elections were held on October 30 and it saw some high-stakes battle between the Congress and the BJP. The assembly by-elections which saw a high turnout were held in five seats in Assam, four in West Bengal, three each in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, two each in Bihar, Karnataka and Rajasthan and one seat each is in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Mizoram and Telangana. Out of the 29 Assembly seats, the BJP had won in around half a dozen constituencies earlier, the Congress had nine, while the rest were with the regional parties.
The seats where Lok Sabha by-elections were held are Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh. In all the three Lok Sabha constituencies, the sitting members had died.
The Mandi seat fell vacant after the death of Ramswaroop Sharma (BJP) in March. The bye-election to the Khandwa parliamentary constituency was necessitated following the death of BJP member Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan while in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, it was due to the demise of Independent Lok Sabha member Mohan Delkar. In Mandi, Pratibha Singh is pitted against BJP’s Khushal Singh Thakur, a Kargil war hero.
In Meghalaya, former national footballer Eugeneson Lyngdoh is contesting the election from Mawphlang on a United Democratic Party (UDP) ticket. He is up against former Congress MLA Kennedy C Khyriem and a sitting member of the district council (MDC) from the NPP, Lamphrang Blah. In Haryana, the by-election to Ellenabad Assembly constituency was necessitated by the resignation of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Chautala as MLA in protest against the Centre’s new farm laws.
Chautala, son of INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala, is contesting against Congress nominee Pawan Beniwal and BJP-JP candidate Gobind Kanda, the brother of Haryana Lokhit Party chief and legislator Gopal Kanda. It is an important contest for the Chautalas as Abhay Chautala had won the 2010 bypolls from Ellenabad when Om Prakash Chautala vacated the seat, and then retained it in 2014 and also in 2019 Assembly polls, when he was the lone INLD MLA in the House.