UP bypolls: Voter turnout at 20%, BJP confident of win; top 10 developments

16.8% voters turned out in Gorakhpur, the backyard of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Keshav Prasad Maurya claimed BJP will win with a mandate as big as the one in 2014 General election

Voter turnout for key Lok Sabha constituencies of Gorakhpur and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh picked up, hitting around 20% as of 12 noon. as reported by news agency PTI. The bypolls were necessitated after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated their seats to assume their respective offices in the state government.

Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is reported to have said that the UP bypolls' mandate for BJP will be as big as the Lok Sabha mandate in 2014 General elections.

Bypolls for Bihar's Lok Sabha Araria seat and two assembly seats -Jehanabad and Bhabua- are also being held on Sunday.

The bye-elections in Bihar are being seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after he exited the Grand Alliance between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and his party, Janata Dal (United).

Bihar saw 31.25% voter turnout recorded in Araria Lok Sabha by-poll, 24.5% in Bhabua and 28.6% in Jehanabad assembly by-polls till 12 noon.

Yogi Adityanath hit out at the 'opportunistic' alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), saying that people will realise their plot and hand the BJP a margin of victory as big as 2014 General election. 

While casting his vote on Sunday early morning, said, "For development and good governance, BJP is necessary." Voting in the by-elections started at around 7 am in the morning, according to reports by news agency ANI.

"The people know that development was the only panacea," he told reporters.

Attacking the BSP and the SP, the chief minister said, "These parties are indulging in negative politics, politics of bargaining and politics of opportunism. The state has suffered the negative consequences (of SP and BSP).

"And in order to ensure that in future such situations do not arise, efforts have to be made to shun politics of casteism and dynastic politics, and focus on development and administration," he said.

The Uttar Pradesh CM slammed Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's criticism of note ban saying, "People will throw away his appeal. Wherever he goes Congress is decimated because he works with a negative mindset". Earlier, Rahul had said, "If I was PM & someone had given me a file with demonetisation written on it, I would've thrown it in dustbin."

The results for both states will be declared on March 14.

Here are the top 10 developments surrounding the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar bypolls:

Uttar Pradesh

1. Candidates in the fray

In Gorakhpur, the key contenders are Upendra Shukla from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Praveen Nishad from Samajwadi Party (SP) and Surhita Chatterjee Karim from Congress.

Meanwhile, candidates in the fray for the Phulpur seat are Kaushalendra Singh Patel from the BJP, Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel from the SP and Manish Mishra from the Congress.

2. Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party join hands:

The BSP, burying its 25-year-old bitter rivalry with the SP, has extended its support to the SP nominees on both seats

3. Raj Babbar slams Akhilesh Yadav

Speaking on the sidelines of the campaign that ended on March 10, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) chief Raj Babbar said his party wanted to join hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the SP but this did not happen due to Akhilesh Yadav's stubborness .

The Congress leader maintained that an SP-BSP-Congress alliance in the bypolls would have made sure that both the Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats were ''snathced'' from the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Congress and SP had forged an alliance for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections but were routed in an electoral onslaught by the BJP.

While the SP was voted out of power and its tally slipped to 47 from 224 in the 2017 assembly polls, the Congress could win only seven seats.

4. 'Secular parties have to come together to oust Narendra Modi in 2019'

Raj Babbar also claimed that to oust Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019, all secular parties will have to join forces and put up a united front. The actor-turned-politician claimed that "otherwise defeating the BJP would not be easy".

5. PM Narendra Modi, Amit Shah lookalikes campaign for BJP in Uttar Pradesh

Choosing a unique way to campaign for Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bye-elections, lookalikes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah have hit the streets of Gorakhpur to gather support for the BJP.

The pair interacted with people on the busy market streets and also offered prayers at a temple.

"We have come from Delhi. My name is Ranveer, and we have been visiting all the markets for a week, talking to people. The response has been warm," the prime minister lookalike told ANI.

The Amit Shah of the pair said, "We have received so much love from the public that I think we will win by five lakh votes."

Bihar

6. Bypolls in Araria, Bhabua, Jehanabad: 

The Araria seat fell vacant after the death of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Taslimuddin. The key contenders for the seat are RJD's Sarafaraz Alam, Taslimuddin's son, and the BJP's Pradip Singh.

The Bhabua assembly seat got vacant after the death of BJP's Anand Bhushan Pandey, and the party has fielded his widow Rinki Rani Pandey. Another key candidate for the seat is Shambhu Patel from Congress.

The death of RJD MLA Mundrika Singh Yadav necessitated the bypoll for Jehanabad seat, and his son Uday Yadav is contesting for the seat. Another key candidate in the fray is JDU's Abhiram Sharma.

7. BJP Bihar chief says RJD win would turn Araria into ISI hub

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Bihar chief Nityanand Rai on Friday said that Araria will turn into an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) hub if Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) wins in the upcoming Lok Sabha bypoll election.

"If (Sarfaraz Alam of RJD) wins then Araria would turn into an ISI hub", said BJP's Bihar Chief, Nityanand Rai while speaking at a public rally.

Araria is a muslim-dominated area with over 40 percent of the population belonging to the religion.

Rai went on to say that if Pradip Singh, a bypoll candidate happens to win the election then the area would remain a hub of patriots.

8. High stakes for NDA and Mahagathbandhan: 

Both National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Grand Alliance are using the bypolls as an opportunity to prove their superiority over the other in terms of popularity among the masses.

While the NDA leaders are confident that they will win all the three seats, the Grand Alliance leaders have repeatedly claimed to pull out victory even in the absence of their star campaigner and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad -- behind bars in connection with two fodder scam cases.

9. Nitish Kumar second fiddle to BJP?

This round of bypolls provides both the BJP and the RJD an opportunity to take on each other directly in Bihar, as a precursor to parliamentary polls next year when they will also, most likely, be the main opponents. Ever since the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United (JD-U) joined the NDA back, the BJP has virtually replaced the former as the main rival to Lalu Prasad's RJD.

This has triggered a debate in the political circles whether Nitish Kumar has accepted the role of a junior partner in state politics. By accepting the BJP offer to contest from Jehannabad, after announcing publicly not to fight the by-elections, the JD-U has given an opportunity to the BJP to prove that it is number one in Bihar NDA.

10. BJP's message of accommodative politics:

A senior BJP leader said that party has decided in favour of the JD-U to contest from Jehanabad to send a political message that the NDA can accommodate its allies to keep the alliance stable.

The current bypoll equations are also likely to reflect in the seat-sharing between the BJP and the JD-U for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, said a senior JD-U leader who did not want to be named.