The bypolls on 48 assembly constituencies and two parliamentary constituencies will be held in two phases along with the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday.
The EC said that the voting for the first phase of bypolls on 47 assembly constituencies and Wayanad parliamentary seat in Kerala will be done on November 13. In the second phase, voting will be held in one assembly constituency in Uttarakhand and the Nanded parliamentary seat in Maharashtra on November 20. The counting of votes will be done on November 23, along with Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
The bypolls will be held in 48 assembly seats across 14 states, including UP, Bihar, Assam, Karnataka, MP, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Sikkim.
The assembly seats in UP where bypolls are scheduled to be held are: Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sishamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad).
Eight of the ten seats fell vacant after the MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls, earlier this year. The bypoll on the ninth seat, Sishamau, is being held due to the disqualification of SP MLA Irfan Solanki, who was convicted in a criminal case.
The byelections in UP is a major test for the opposition, looking to repeat its Lok Sabha success in the state, and for the ruling BJP ahead of the 2027 UP assembly polls.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress, in alliance with the SP contested 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The SP won 37 seats, while the Congress managed to secure six, providing a morale boost for a party that had been sidelined in the state for years.
Recently, the SP announced its candidates for six seats, including Karhal (Mainpuri), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Katehari (Ambedkarnagar), Phulpur (Prayagraj), and Majhawan (Mirzapur) seats.
In the 2022 UP assembly elections, the SP secured victories in Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, Milkipur, and Kundarki, while the BJP won in Phulpur, Ghaziabad, and Khair, with the Nishad Party winning in Majhawan. The Meerapur seat was held by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a former ally of the SP.
