In the Lok Sabha bypoll from Mainpuri, which was required as a result of the passing of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded former MP Raghuraj Singh Shakya against Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. Earlier this year, Shakya switched from Shivpal Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party to the BJP.
Mainpuri is regarded as one of the Samajwadi Party’s strongholds, and the BJP would like to overthrow it as it recently did with the Lok Sabha seats of Azamgarh and Rampur. The BJP is more optimistic now that Shivpal Yadav and his nephew, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, have broken up due to the senior Yadav’s dominance in Mainpuri.
The BJP also made its candidates for the byelections to the three assembly seats in Bihar, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh known. Following the incumbent MLAs’ disqualification as a result of convictions in separate cases, the two assembly seats in UP — Khatauli and Rampur — became vacant.
Rampur seat became vacant as a result of the conviction of Samajwadi Party MLA Azam Khan in a 2019 hate speech case by an MP-MLA court and the disqualification of BJP MLA Vikram Saini from the UP legislative assembly due to his conviction in a case involving the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Rajkumari Saini and Akash Saxena, who are both running for BJP in Khatauli and Rampur, respectively.
The Samajwadi Party (SP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance has declared former MLA Madan Bhaiya as its candidate for the bypoll to the Khatauli seat. The update was shared by the official Twitter handle of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). ‘’Madan Bhaiya will be the candidate of RLD-SP alliance for Khatauli assembly seat by-election 2022,’’ read the tweet in Hindi.
As a joint candidate of the ruling mahagathbandhan and a former legislator from the Janata Dal-United, Manoj Kushwaha will face Kedar Prasad Gupta in the byelection for the Kurhani assembly constituency in Bihar (Grand Alliance).
Ashok Kumar Pincha and Brahmanand Netam, both candidates for byelections to the Sardarshahar assembly in Rajasthan and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh, have been named by the BJP.