New Delhi:
Gujarat's Vadodara constituency vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the 36 Lok Sabha and assembly seats across nine states where by-elections will be held today.
Here are the 10 latest developments in this story:
PM Modi won Vadodara by nearly six lakh votes, which was the highest victory margin in the national election that saw his BJP winning a decisive mandate to rule the country. Mr Modi chose to retain Varanasi in UP, the second constituency that he won.
Ranjan Ben Bhatta is the BJP candidate in Vadodara against Narendra Rawat of the Congress.
Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh is a prestige battle for Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who vacated the seat and retained Azamgarh. Mulayam won the seat five times. His grand-nephew Tej Pratap Yadav, a Leeds University graduate, is debuting as the party's candidate.
The ruling BJP has high stakes in Uttar Pradesh, where it wants to retain its dominance; the party won a whopping 71 of 80 seats in the May election, a remarkable sweep credited to Amit Shah, who was appointed BJP chief in July. The party has campaigned extensively in the 11 assembly constituencies going to polls. Its star campaigner Yogi Adityanath, a four-time MP, was booked for defying a rally ban and reprimanded by the Election Commission for a hate speech.
By-polls are also being held to the Medak Lok Sabha seat vacated by Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Chief K Chandrasekhar Rao after he became the first Chief Minister of Telangana.
Polling is also taking place in 22 assembly seats in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The votes will be counted on Tuesday.
In by-polls last month in Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, the BJP's score was less than impressive. In Bihar the alliance of former rivals Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar, along with the Congress, scored an impressive six out of 10 assembly seats. The BJP won four, which rivals said reflected voters' disappointment in three months of the new government.
The BJP also lost in Bellary in Karnataka, winning only one of three seats by a very modest margin.
The next round of polling will be held on October 15, when two major Congress-ruled states, Maharashtra and Haryana, will vote for new assemblies. The verdict will be announced on October 19.
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