Bypolls 2020: Everything you need to know

In the first phase on November 3, elections were held in 54 Assembly constituencies across 10 states -- 28 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 8 in Gujarat, 7 in Uttar Pradesh, 2 each in Odisha, Nagaland, Karnataka and Jharkhand; and 1 seat each in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Haryana. Voting for four seats in Manipur was held on November 7.

Currently, there are 63 seats vacant in state Assemblies across the country.

At this stage, Assembly bypolls in the remaining 7 seats will not be held as these seats fall in states where Assembly elections are due next year. These vacant seats are in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

The Election Commission will announce the results of the bypolls on November 10. The results will be declared live on ECI websites – eciresults.nic.in, eci.gov.in, and results.eci.gov.in.

These by-elections are important for senior leaders in Madhya Pradesh -- Jyotiraditya Scindia, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Narendra Singh Tomar of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Kamal Nath of the Congress – as voting was held in the highest number of Assembly constituencies.

In all 355 candidates, including 12 ministers, were in the fray for the by-elections.

The BJP currently has 107 legislators and it requires at least 9 seats to cross the halfway mark in the House.

Congress has 87 MLAs in the Assembly and it needs all the 28 seats if it wants to form the government.

Five former Congress legislators who had switched over to the BJP have fought these bye-elections.

Uttar Pradesh

There were 93 candidates in the fray for the elections in the state.

Rajarajeshwari Nagar (RR Nagar) in Bengaluru and Sira in Tumkur went to polls in the state.

RR Nagar seat fell vacant after Congress MLA N Munirathna defected to the BJP. Sira seat fell vacant after Janata Dal (Secular) candidate B Satyanarayana died in August.

Assembly seats of Tirtol and Balasore Sadar went to polls in the by-election.

Balasore seat fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Madan Mohan Dutta in June. Tirtol seat fell vacant after the death of the Biju Janata Dal’s Bishnu Charan Das in July.

Dumka and Bermo constituencies went to polls on November 3. Dumka seat fell vacant after Chief Minister Hemant Soren retained the Barhait seat and give up Dumka. Basant Soren, the brother of the chief minister, is contesting for the seat.

Bermo seat fell vacant after Congress MLA Rajendra Prasad Singh died in May.

Angami-I seat in Kohima district and the Pungro-Kiphire seat in Kiphire district went to polls. These seats fell vacant after the deaths of former Assembly Speaker Vikho-o Yhoshu and Naga People’s Front legislator T Torechu.

Dubbaka Assembly seat fell vacant after the death of Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLA Solipeta Ramalinga Reddy. Thirty-four candidates were in the fray for the bypolls.

Baroda seat fell vacant after the demise of Congress MLA Shri Krishan Hooda. In all 14 candidates, including wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt, were in the fray.

By-elections were held in Lilong and Wangjing-Tentha seats in Thoubal district, Saitu in Kangpokpi and Wangoi in Imphal West.