New Delhi. By-elections are to be held on 10 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, out of which election dates have been announced for 9 seats. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar did not announce the election schedule for Milkipur assembly seat of Ayodhya. The reason behind this he said was that the election related case on Milkipur seat is pending in the court. In fact, former BJP MLA Gorakhnath Baba has filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court regarding SP MLA Awadhesh Prasad winning the election after the defeat in the 2022 assembly elections, in which he has raised the issue related to oath taken while filling the nomination form.
Milkipur seat has become vacant due to Awadhesh Prasad becoming MP. SP had given ticket to Awadhesh Prasad from Faizabad seat in the Lok Sabha elections. However, Milkipur seat is considered the stronghold of Samajwadi Party. The 9 seats on which assembly by-elections have been announced in UP include Karhal of Mainpuri, Sisamau of Kanpur, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Phulpur, Majhwan, Katehari, Khair and Meerapur. Voting on all these seats will be held on November 13. Counting of votes will be done on November 23 and the result will be declared on the same day. Notification for the by-elections to be held on all these 9 seats will be issued on October 18.
The last date for filing nomination papers has been fixed as October 25. Nomination papers will be scrutinized on October 28, after which candidates can withdraw their names till October 30. Samajwadi Party has announced its candidates on 6 out of these 9 seats. Akhilesh Yadav has given ticket to his nephew and Lalu Yadav’s son-in-law Tej Pratap from Karhal, while from Sisamau seat he has expressed confidence in Naseem Solanki, wife of jailed former MLA Irfan Solanki. Now that the election dates have been announced, soon BJP and Congress will also field their candidates.
