First Test Of Opposition I.N.D.I. Alliance Ahead Of State Elections, LS Polls: Seven Bypolls In Six States Tomorrow

In a big test for the Opposition I.N.D.I. Alliance, by-elections will be held on Tuesday (5 September) for seven Assembly seats in six states.

These elections will be the first contests between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition bloc before the upcoming Assembly polls in major states later this year.

Five of the seven seats are vacant due to the deaths of the sitting MLAs, while the other two MLAs resigned from their posts.

The seats undergoing polling on Tuesday are Dumri in Jharkhand, Puthuppally in Kerala, Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura, Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, and Dhupguri in West Bengal.

The counting for these bypolls will be on 8 September.

Dumri, Jharkhand

The seat became vacant following the death of Jagarnath Mahto, who had served as the Dumri MLA since 2005, when Jharkhand held its first Assembly poll as a separate state.

Mahto, a member of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren, won the seat in the 2019 Assembly polls with a margin of over 34,000 votes against Yashoda Devi from the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU).

This time, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, now a member of the INDI Alliance, is fielding Mahto's wife Bebi Devi. After her husband's demise, she took over as the state's Minister of Prohibition and Excise.

Mahto had previously served as the Minister of Education in the Soren Cabinet.

Yashoda Devi, who contested as the AJSU candidate in 2019, will once again be fielded by the party.

However, this time she will be the candidate for the NDA, as the BJP has decided not to enter the fray. The AJSU hopes to consolidate the NDA's vote share in the absence of a BJP candidate.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen will also field its 2019 candidate, Abdul Rizvi.

However, Rizvi is currently facing an FIR for allegedly raising "pro-Pakistan" slogans during a rally led by party chief Asaddudin Owaisi in Giridih district on 30 August.

The NDA has put in a lot of efforts to win this seat, with visits from Union ministers Arjun Munda and Annapurna Devi, as well as former chief ministers Babulal Marandi and Raghubar Das.

Dumri is mainly populated by the Mahto caste group, which has historically played a significant role in elections.

Following the Mahtos, the Vaishya caste group and the Muslim community are the largest sections of the population, with tribal communities following closely behind.

The results of this bypoll will not immediately affect the composition of the state Assembly.

The JMM-led ruling coalition currently holds 49 out of the 80 total seats, with the JMM alone having 29 MLAs.

Other coalition members include the Congress (17 MLAs), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (1 MLA), and the Nationalist Congress Party (1 seat).

The BJP, with 26 MLAs, leads the Opposition, along with 3 AJSU MLAs in the NDA. Durmi has a total of 2.73 lakh voters spread across 373 polling booths.

Puthuppally, Kerala

The by-poll to the constituency was called following the demise of Oommen Chandy, a two-time Chief Minister and the Puthuppally MLA since 1970, Indian Express reported.

Historically, this seat has been a stronghold for the Congress party, with the exception of one instance in 1967 when the CPI(M) emerged victorious.

In the recent 2021 Assembly polls, Chandy secured his 12th consecutive win, defeating the CPI(M)'s Jaick C Thomas by a narrow margin of over 9,000 votes.

Chandy's son, Chandy Oommen, a 37-year-old Youth Congress leader, has been selected as the Congress party's candidate for the by-poll.

The party is relying on the late MLA's popularity in the constituency, with Chandy being affectionately known as Kunjoonju (meaning little child in Malayalam) by the locals.

The Congress party is projecting Chandy's son as a continuation of his father's legacy.

On the other hand, the CPI(M), which leads the Left Democratic Front government in the state, has decided to field Jaick C Thomas once again in the hopes of reducing the Congress's vote share.

This will be Thomas' third attempt at winning the seat, as he is yet to emerge victorious.

The BJP is presenting Ligin Lal, the president of the Kottayam district unit, as their candidate for the upcoming election. This will only be Lal's second time running for office.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also joined the race, with newcomer Luke Thomas as their candidate.

However, the main contenders in this election are expected to be the Congress and the CPI(M).

Despite Hindus comprising the majority of the population in Puthuppally, the BJP has struggled to gain significant support in the constituency.

The Ezhava Hindu community, which forms the largest portion of the Hindu population, tends to support the CPI(M).

The Nair and Viswakarma communities are divided in their party affiliations.

Christians make up about 40 percent of the population, and their support is split between Chandy Oommen and Thomas.

While Oommen is an Orthodox Christian, Thomas’s Jacobite community within the Christians will back the CPI(M).

Despite Puthuppally being a stronghold for the Congress, the CPI(M) has a strong presence and control over six out of the eight local governing bodies in the constituency.

The CPI(M) is focusing on criticising the Congress for the lack of development in Puthuppally compared to the rest of Kerala.

On the other hand, the Congress is targeting the LDF on issues such as rubber cultivation and the government's failure to ensure fair prices.

Currently, the 140-member Assembly consists of 98 LDF MLAs and 40 UDF MLAs.

The CPI(M) alone holds 61 seats, while the Congress has 20 seats. Puthuppally constituency in Kerala has a total of 1.76 lakh voters spread across 185 polling booths.

Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura

Following the Assembly elections in Tripura, two seats in the state will undergo bypolls.

One seat was vacated due to the death of an MLA, while the other was left vacant after a resignation.

The bypolls in both seats will witness a direct contest between the CPI(M) and BJP.

The Congress party is supporting the CPI(M), while the newly formed tribal party, Tipra Motha, led by Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma, the former Tripuri royal, has chosen not to field a candidate and has not officially endorsed either the CPI(M) or the BJP.

Dhanpur constituency in Tripura is holding a bypoll as a result of the resignation of BJP's Pratima Bhoumik, who wanted to retain her Lok Sabha seat.

Bhoumik, who is the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment of India, became the first Tripura resident and second woman from the Northeast to hold a Union ministerial post.

In the 2023 Assembly elections, Bhoumik won the seat by a margin of 3,500 votes, defeating the CPI(M)'s Kaushik Chanda.

The CPI(M) had held the seat since the first state polls in 1972, including during the four-time chief minister Manik Sarkar's tenure from 1998 to 2023.

After CPI(M)'s loss in the 2018 Assembly polls, Sarkar became the leader of Opposition. However, in 2023, he chose not to contest in order to pave the way for younger leaders.

The BJP is putting forward Bindu Debnath, the brother of Bhoumik, a local party leader, in the bypoll. The party hopes that the family connection will influence voters.

On the other hand, the CPI(M) is fielding Kaushik Chanda, who had previously lost in the 2023 Assembly poll.

Interestingly, Debnath and Chanda were schoolmates at the Kabi Nazrul Vidyalaya.

Both parties are claiming that the absence of a Tipra Motha candidate will help them consolidate their vote share.

The CPI(M) even asserts that Tipra Motha workers are supporting them on the ground, although the party is not officially endorsing anyone.

Dhanpur is a constituency with a diverse population, including ST, SC, and other minority groups. Tribal voters make up 28 per cent of the population in this seat.

The bypoll in Boxanagar was triggered by the death of CPI(M) MLA Samsul Haque. This seat has been a stronghold for the Left, with the CPI(M) holding it since 2003.

The Congress has only won here three times since 1972. In the 2023 Assembly polls, Haque defeated the BJP's Tafajjal Hossain by a margin of less than 5,000 votes.

The CPI(M) is aiming to retain the Muslim-majority constituency in the bypoll, with the candidacy of Mizan Hossain, son of Haque and a state committee member of the party's youth wing.

On the other hand, the BJP is once again fielding Tafajjal Hossain. If elected, Tafajjal would be the BJP's sole Muslim MLA in the Assembly.

After 25 years of CPI(M) rule, the BJP formed its first government in Tripura in 2018, with Biplab Kumar Deb as Chief Minister.

In 2023, the BJP secured a narrow margin of seats, resulting in Manik Saha becoming the Chief Minister.

Currently, the NDA government holds 32 out of the 60 seats in the Assembly, followed by Tipra Motha with 13 seats, CPI(M) with 10 seats, and Congress with 3 seats.

Dhanpur constituency has a total of 50,147 voters spread across 59 polling booths, while Boxanagar constituency has 43,087 voters distributed among 51 booths.

Bageshwar, Uttarakhand

A bypoll will be held in the Bageshwar seat in Uttarakhand, one year after the Assembly polls, due to the unfortunate death of the sitting BJP MLA Chandan Ram Dass.

Dass, who had been a four-time MLA and minister with various portfolios, emerged victorious in the 2022 polls by defeating Congress candidate Ranjeet Das by over 12,000 votes.

In the upcoming bypoll, the BJP has fielded Dass's wife Parwati as its candidate. She will be directly contesting against Basant Kumar from the Congress.

It is worth noting that the Congress had to choose Kumar as its candidate after their previous candidate, Ranjeet Das, joined the BJP just weeks before the election. However, Ranjeet was not selected as the BJP candidate.

Despite being an ally of the Congress in the INDI Alliance, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has decided to field its own candidate, Bhagawati Prasad, in a test of Opposition unity.

In the previous election, the SP only managed to secure 0.68 per cent of the votes in this seat and does not currently have any MLAs in the Assembly.

The BJP is the largest party in the Assembly with 46 MLAs, followed by the Congress with 19 and the BSP with two.

Bageshwar, a Schedule Caste seat in the Kumaon region, has been under the control of the BJP since 2007.

The last time the Congress emerged victorious here was in 2002. The constituency has a total of 1.2 lakh voters spread across 188 polling booths.

Ghosi, Uttar Pradesh

The Ghosi bypoll was called after Dara Singh Chauhan, a serial party-hopper, resigned as the Samajwadi Party's MLA to rejoin the BJP earlier this year.

Chauhan had previously won the Ghosi seat as an SP candidate in the 2022 Assembly polls, defeating the BJP's Vijay Kumar Rajbhar by a margin of over 22,000 votes.

Dara Singh Chauhan, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader, has had a history of changing political affiliations.

He has been a member of the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and has had two separate stints with both the BJP and the SP. Chauhan served as a Lok Sabha MP for the BSP and was a member of BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's Cabinet from 2017 to 2022.

The Ghosi seat in Uttar Pradesh has been a battleground for the BJP, BSP, and SP since the 1990s.

These parties have taken turns winning the seat, with the Congress not winning here since 1989.

The BJP has chosen to field Chauhan once again in the Ghosi constituency, replacing the previous candidate Vijay Kumar Rajbhar, who is also an OBC leader.

Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput who previously served as the Ghosi MLA from 2012 to 2017 but has since faced defeat in consecutive Assembly polls, is the candidate representing the SP.

The Congress has decided not to field a candidate and is instead supporting its partner, INDIA, despite the SP's refusal to withdraw its candidate in Uttarakhand's Bageshwar by-poll.

The BSP, too, has chosen not to participate in the by-poll.

Ghosi is predominantly dominated by OBC community, who make up the largest community in the area.

Among the 4.4 lakh voters spread across 340 polling booths, around 60,000 are Rajbhar voters, 50,000 belong to the Chauhan community (also known as Nonias), around 40,000 are Yadavs, and 60,000 are Dalits.

Additionally, there are around 90,000 Muslim voters and around 77,000 upper-caste Hindus, including 45,000 Bhumihars, 16,000 Rajputs, and 6,000 Brahmins.

In the past six assembly elections, the people of Ghosi have elected an OBC MLA on five occasions.

The SP is relying on its PDA (Pichde - backward classes, Dalits, and Alpsankhyak - minorities) formula to secure victory not only in the by-poll but also in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Given the significant presence of OBCs, Muslims, and Dalits in the Ghosi assembly seat, it serves as a testing ground for the PDA groups' influence against the NDA.

Currently, the NDA holds 280 MLAs out of the total 403 members in the Assembly, with 255 being from the BJP.

The INDI Alliance bloc, on the other hand, has 119 MLAs, including 115 from the SP, 9 from the Rashtriya Lok Dal, and 2 from the Congress. The BSP, which has not formed an alliance with either the NDA or INDI Alliance, has one MLA.

Dhupguri, West Bengal

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP made significant gains in the state, winning 77 seats compared to their previous tally of three.

In Dhupguri, Bishnu Pada Ray of the BJP emerged victorious over Mitali Roy of the Trinamool Congress by a narrow margin of 4,300 votes.

However, following Ray's demise in July, a bypoll is now scheduled for the constituency.

The BJP has chosen Tapasi Roy, the widow of CRPF jawan Jagannath Roy, who lost his life in a terrorist attack in Kashmir in 2021, as their candidate for the bypoll.

Both the Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) have also fielded new candidates.

Nirmal Chandra Roy, a professor at Dhupguri Girls College, is representing the Trinamool, while the CPI(M) has chosen Ishwar Chandra Roy, a folk artiste, as its candidate.

Both parties are hoping to wrest the seat away from the BJP.

The upcoming bypoll in Dhupguri will witness a contest between members of the INDI Alliance bloc, with the Congress backing the CPI(M) against the Trinamool.

The Congress has won this seat three times since Independence, while the CPI(M) has been the dominant party, winning it eight times consecutively between 1977 and 2011.

Mitali Roy, who had previously won the seat in 2016 as a member of the Trinamool Congress but later joined the BJP, lost to Bishnu Pada Ray in the 2021 elections.

The main competition for the reserved Schedule Caste seat is anticipated to be between the BJP and TMC.

Concerned about the BJP's growing influence in north Bengal, the TMC has launched its campaign with party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and has promised to upgrade Dhupguri to a sub-division by the end of this year.

Dhupguri constituency, situated in Jalpaiguri district, is predominantly agricultural and is home to numerous tea gardens. It has a significant population of Rajbanshi and Matua caste groups, with a total of 2.6 lakh voters spread across 260 booths.

The 294-member West Bengal Assembly currently has 220 Trinamool MLAs and 69 from the BJP.

Currently, out of the 294-member Assembly, the Trinamool Congress has 220 MLAs while the BJP has 69.