By-polls: Several key contests in UP and Gujarat

By-elections in 33 Assembly and three Lok Sabha seats across nine states were held on Saturday. The key contests being the 11 Assembly seats in UP and nine in Gujarat. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has put much effort to retain the 11 Assembly seats in UP. Several central ministers have camped in UP over the last few weeks as the party is keen to avert the kind of reverses it witnessed in the by-polls held last month, losing several of its sitting seats in Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Bihar.

The BJP had sitting legislators in 10 of UP's 11 seats, while party ally, Apna Dal's Anuradha Patel was an MLA from Rohaniya Assembly seat. Half of these seats are in western UP, which in recent months has witnessed several communal clashes. The BJP and its rival Samajwadi Party have accused each other of playing politics of communal polarisation.

On Saturday, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav attacked the BJP for having promised "achhe din" or better days but losing their way to talking about "love jihad". Yadav cast his vote for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Here, his cousin, Tej Pratap Singh, is the SP candidate against BJP's Shiv Singh Shakya. The Congress hasn't fielded a candidate.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) does not contest by-elections as a policy and hasn't fielded any candidate this time. The BJP is confident that most of BSP's Dalit support base would vote for it, as it did during the Lok Sabha polls. The UP by-polls would also be a test for its controversial Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, in news for his comments on 'love jihad'. Adityanath was made the party in-charge for these by-polls. The polls would also be an indicator to the Assembly polls in the state in 2017.

Apart from Mainpuri, the other two Lok Sabha seats that went to the polls are Medak in Andhra Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujarat. SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav had vacated the Mainpuri seat, retaining his Azamgarh seat while Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated the Vadodara seat, opting to remain an MP from Varanasi. The Medak seat fell vacant after K Chandrasekhar Rao resigned to become the Telangana CM.

The by-polls in Gujarat are also the first test Modi's successor Anandiben Patel faces. The BJP filed a complaint against the Congress candidates from Maninagar and Anand Assembly seats for breaching the model code of conduct as they were wearing scarves with Congress symbol when they cast their votes. The other key contest was in Rajasthan, where the new Congress state unit chief Sachin Pilot has worked hard to prove his mettle.

Four Assembly seats went to the polls in Rajasthan, three in Assam, two in West Bengal, one each in Tripura, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Medak Lok Sabha seat and Nandigama (SC) witnessed 65 per cent polling. The voter turnout in Assam was nearly 70 per cent, 50 per cent in UP's 11 Assembly and Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat while Chhattisgarh's Antagarh (ST) constituency saw 50 per cent polling. Rajasthan's saw 66 per cent turnout, while Tripura's Manu (ST) constituency recorded the highest 87 per cent turnout. The nine assembly seats in Gujarat saw 49 per cent polling.

Stray incidents of violence were reported from Chowringhee and Basirhat Dakshin Assembly seats in West Bengal. The BJP and the CPI(M) accused the ruling Trinamool Congress workers of attacking their cadres. The polls are being held with several TMC members under the shadow of the Saradha chit fund scam.

At least one party leader, Rajat Majumdar, has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Trinamool Congress' candidate from Chowringhee is party leader Sudip Bandyopadhya's actress wife Nayana.