Polling for by-elections are being held in four assembly seats in the country today. In Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, Pala in Kerala, Badharghat in Tripura and Hamirpur assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, people are awaiting their turn to vote in row amidst guarded security arrangements. On August 25, the Election Commission had announced a by-election for these seats. The results of the by-elections in these seats will come on September 27.
According to the Election Commission, the polling started at 7 am will go on till 6 pm. The BJP's MLA Ashok Kumar Singh Chandel, the Hamirpur seat of UP, has been vacated due to the cancellation of his assembly membership after the court sentenced him in a murder case. A total of nine candidates are in the fray in this by-election. The candidates mainly include Yuvraj Singh of BJP, Har Deepak Nishad of Congress, Manoj Kumar Prajapati of SP, Naushad Ali of BSP and Alam Mansoori of Communist Party of India.
Apart from this, elections are being held on the seats of Dantewada, Pala and Badharghat after the death or assassination of candidates and leaders. The by-election in Dantewada seat is being held due to death by BJP candidate Bhima Mandavi. On April 9 this year, Bhima Mandavi was killed in an attack by Naxalites. Four policemen were also killed in the attack. Bhima Mandavi won the 2018 assembly elections. Meanwhile, the presiding officer Chandraprakash Thakur has died while on duty in Dantewada by-election today. It is being told that he died of heart attack.
