Voting Begins For 4 Assembly Seats

Across Meghalaya, Odisha, and UP…

New Delhi: On Wednesday, 10 May 2023, Polling for four assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Meghalaya was held along with voting for one Lok Sabha seat in Punjab.

Voting has begun in the assembly seats of Suar and Chhanbey in Uttar Pradesh, Jharsuguda in Odisha, and Sohiong in Meghalaya. Polling in Punjab's Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat will start at 8 am.

The Jalandhar seat was vacant after the death of Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary.

He suffered a cardiac arrest during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jalandhar's Phillaur in January 2023.

The seat is expected to witness a contest with the AAP, BJP, Congress, and Shiromani Akali Dal vying to outdo each other in the Dalit stronghold.

Prominent among those in the fray are Congress' Karamjit Kaur, the wife of Santokh Chaudhary, ex-MLA Sushil Rinku, who quit the Congress to join the BJP, and Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, a Dalit Sikh, who quit the Shiromani Akali Dal to join the saffron party.

In UP's Suar and Chhanbey seats, there is a faceoff between the ruling coalition and the opposition Samajwadi Party.

Though the results will have no direct impact on the constitution of the assembly, it will be a morale booster for the victor before the Lok Sabha poll which is in the year 2024.

The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party will not contest the by-elections, while the Congress has fielded its candidate only in Chhanbey.