Four-cornered contest in Hamirpur bypoll

The bypolls to the Hamirpur assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh on Monday will see nine candidates jostling to win the seat that the BJP looks to retain after it fell vacant as its legislator was convicted in a murder case.

The bypoll to the constituency will witness a four-cornered contest, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party and the Congress fielding their candidates.

Voting will be held from 7 am-6 pm, while counting of votes will take place on Friday, according to the office of the state chief electoral officer.

The by-election, the first to be held after the Lok Sabha election, has been necessitated due to the disqualification of sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Ashok Kumar Singh Chandel following his conviction in a murder case.

The prominent among the nine candidates are: Yuwraj Singh (BJP), Hardeepak Nishad (Congress), Manoj Kumar Prajapati (SP), Naushad Ali (BSP) and Jamal Alam Mansoori (Communist Party of India).

Over four lakh voters will be deciding the electoral fortunes of the candidates in the fray. There are 2.20 lakh male voters, 1.81 lakh female voters and 10 third gender voters.

As many as 476 polling booths have been set up in 257 polling centres. VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) machines will be installed at every polling booth.

Paramilitary forces have been deployed in adequate numbers to ensure peaceful polls. Webcasting will be done from 52 booths to keep a watch over critical booths.

The Election Commission had on Saturday announced polling for 11 assembly seats in the state on October 21. The seats mostly belong to MLAs who had won the Lok Sabha election and resigned as members of the state assembly.

Assembly constituencies that will vote in the bypolls are Gangoh, Rampur, Iglas (SC), Lucknow Cantonment, Govindnagar, Manikpur, Pratapgarh, Zaidpur (SC), Jalalpur, Balha (SC) and Ghosi.

The assembly constituency of Ghosi became vacant following the resignation of sitting MLA Phagu Chauhan after he was appointed as the Governor of Bihar.