Seven bypolls in six states today, a test of contradictions for INDIA bloc

Here’s why these bypolls matter and what to expect on counting day on September 8.

Dumri, Jharkhand

The seat was vacated after the death of Jagarnath Mahto, who had been the Dumri MLA since 2005 when Jharkhand’s first Assembly poll as a separate state was held. Mahto, a member of the Chief Minister Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, had won the seat in the 2019 Assembly polls. He had beaten the All Jharkhand Students Union’s (AJSU) Yashoda Devi by more than 34,000 votes.

Durmi has 2.73 lakh voters across 373 polling booths.

The JMM, now an INDIA bloc member, is fielding Mahto’s wife Bebi Devi this time. After her husband’s death, she had also replaced him as the state’s Minister of Prohibition and Excise. Mahto had also been the Minister of Education in the Soren Cabinet.

The AJSU will field Yashoda Devi again, but this time as the NDA candidate, with the BJP deciding against entering the fray. The AJSU is hoping to consolidate the NDA’s vote share in the absence of a BJP candidate.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen will also field its 2019 candidate, Abdul Rizvi, again. Rizvi is facing an FIR for allegedly raising “pro-Pakistan” slogans during party chief Asaddudin Owaisi’s rally in Giridih district on August 30.

The NDA has campaigned heavily in this seat, with visits from Union ministers Arjun Munda and Annapurna Devi, and former Chief Ministers Babulal Marandi and Raghubar Das, in an attempt to wrest the constituency from the JMM.

Dumri is dominated by the Mahto caste group, which has played a key role in elections. After the Mahtos, the Vaishya caste group and the Muslim community make up the largest sections of the population, followed by tribal communities.

Results in this bypoll won’t immediately impact the Assembly composition, with the JMM-led ruling coalition holding 49 of the 80 total seats. While the JMM alone has 29 MLAs, other coalition members include the Congress (17 MLAs), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (1 MLA), the Nationalist Congress Party (1 seat). The BJP, with 26 MLAs, leads the Opposition with 3 AJSU MLAs in the NDA.

Durmi has 2.73 lakh voters across 373 polling booths.

Puthuppally, Kerala

A by-poll was called after the death of the Congress’s Oommen Chandy, a two-time Chief Minister and the Puthuppally MLA since 1970. A Congress bastion, the only time it had a non-Congress MLA was in 1967 when the CPI(M) won the seat. In the 2021 Assembly polls, Chandy had won the seat for the 12th consecutive time, defeating the CPI(M)’s Jaick C Thomas in a close contest, by just over 9,000 votes.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, Chandy had won the seat for the 12th consecutive time, defeating the CPI(M)’s Jaick C Thomas in a close contest, by just over 9,000 votes.

The Congress, which leads the Opposition United Democratic Front in the Kerala government, has named Chandy’s son, 37-year-old Youth Congress leader Chandy Oommen as its candidate. The party appears to be banking on the late MLA’s popularity in the constituency – Chandy was affectionately known as Kunjoonju (Malayalam for little child) by locals, who have reportedly kept the candles at his grave in Puthupally lit since his death in July. The Congress is projecting his son as an extension of Chandy.

The CPI(M), which leads the Left Democratic Front government in the state, is fielding Thomas again, in the hopes that he can further cut into the Congress’s vote share. Thomas, now contesting the seat for the third time, is yet to win.

The BJP is fielding Kottayam district unit president Ligin Lal to contest in only his second ever poll. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also entered the fray, with first-time candidate Luke Thomas.

The contest, however, is likely to be dominated by the Congress and the CPI(M). Though Hindus make up more than half the population in Puthuppally, the BJP has been unable to make significant inroads in the constituency. The Ezhava Hindu community makes up the largest chunk of the constituency’s Hindus but mostly supports the CPI(M). The Nair and Viswakarma communities are divided between the parties. While Christians make up about 40% of the population, they are split between Chandy Oommen and Thomas — while Oommen is an Orthodox Christian, Thomas’s Jacobite community within the Christians will back the CPI(M).

Despite Puthuppally being a Congress stronghold, the CPI(M) maintains a strong party machinery in the constituency and six of the eight local self-governing bodies are controlled by the LDF. The CPI(M) is targeting the Congress on development, claiming Puthuppally has been left behind as the rest of Kerala develops. The Congress, however, has attacked the LDF on issues like rubber cultivation and the government’s failure to ensure fair selling prices.

The 140-member Assembly currently has 98 LDF MLAs and 40 UDF MLAs. The CPI(M) alone has 61 seats compared with the Congress’s 20.

Puthuppally has 1.76 lakh voters across 185 polling booths.

Dhanpur and Boxanagar, Tripura

Just months after the Assembly elections in Tripura, two seats will see bypolls in the state – one necessitated by the death of an MLA and the other by a resignation. Both seats will feature a straight contest between the CPI(M) and BJP. The Congress is backing the CPI(M) while the recently founded tribal party Tipra Motha, led by erstwhile Tripuri royal Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma, is not fielding a candidate and officially has not backed either the CPI(M) or the BJP.

Dhanpur is holding a bypoll since the BJP’s Pratima Bhoumik resigned to retain her Lok Sabha seat. She is the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment of India, the first Tripura resident and second woman from the Northeast to become a Union minister. In the 2023 polls, Bhoumik had won the seat by 3,500 votes, defeating the CPI(M)’s Kaushik Chanda. The CPI(M) had held the seat since the first state polls in 1972, including by four-time Chief Minister Manik Sarkar between 1998 and 2023. After the Assembly poll loss in 2018, Sarkar became the Leader of Opposition but, in 2023, did not contest elections, so as to make way for younger leaders.

Dhanpur is holding a bypoll since the BJP’s Pratima Bhoumik resigned to retain her Lok Sabha seat.

In the bypoll, the BJP is fielding Bhoumik’s brother Bindu Debnath, a local party leader, in the hope that the family connection sways voters. The CPI(M) is fielding Kaushik Chanda, who had lost in the 2023 Assembly poll. Interestingly, Debnath and Chanda were schoolmates at the Kabi Nazrul Vidyalaya.

Both parties have claimed the absence of a Tipra Motha candidate will allow each to consolidate its vote share. The CPI(M) has even claimed that Tipra Motha workers are supporting it on the ground, though officially the party is not backing anyone.

Dhanpur has a mix of ST, SC and other minority groups. Tribal voters account for 28% of the seat’s population.

In Boxanagar, a bypoll was necessitated by the death of CPI(M) MLA Samsul Haque. A stronghold for the Left, the seat has been held by the CPI(M) since 2003 and, since 1972, the Congress has only won here three times. Haque had defeated the BJP’s Tafajjal Hossain by less than 5,000 votes in the 2023 Assembly polls.

A stronghold for the Left, the seat has been held by the CPI(M) since 2003 and, since 1972, the Congress has only won here three times.

In the bypoll, the CPI(M) is hoping to retain the Muslim-majority constituency with Haque’s son, Mizan Hossain, who is also a state committee member of the party’s youth wing. The BJP is fielding Tafajjal Hossain again. If elected, Tafajjal will be the BJP’s only Muslim MLA in the Assembly.

The BJP had formed its first Tripura government in 2018 under Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb after 25 years of CPI(M) rule. In 2023, the BJP won by a narrow margin of seats with Manik Saha becoming the Chief Minister. Currently, the NDA government has 32 seats in the 60-seat Assembly. The Tipra Motha has 13 seats, followed by 10 for the CPI(M) and 3 for the Congress.

There are 50,147 voters in Dhanpur across 59 polling booths and 43,087 voters in Boxanagar across 51 booths.

Bageshwar, Uttarakhand

A year after the Assembly polls in Uttarakhand, the Bageshwar seat will hold a bypoll following the death of sitting BJP MLA Chandan Ram Dass. Dass, a four-time MLA and minister with the portfolios of Social Welfare, Minority Welfare, Road Transport, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, had won in the 2022 polls for a fourth consecutive time after defeating the Congress’s Ranjeet Das by more than 12,000 votes.

In the 2022 poll, the SP had only won 0.68% of the votes in this seat and has no MLAs in the current Assembly.

This time, the BJP is fielding Dass’s wife Parwati in a direct contest against the Congress’s Basant Kumar. After the Congress’s previous candidate Ranjeet Das left to join the BJP just weeks before the election, the party opted to field former AAP candidate Kumar. Ranjeet, however, was not named as the BJP candidate.

In a test of Opposition unity, the Samajwadi Party (SP), despite being a Congress ally in the INDIA bloc, is also fielding a candidate, Bhagawati Prasad. In the 2022 poll, the SP had only won 0.68% of the votes in this seat and has no MLAs in the current Assembly. The BJP is the largest party with 46 MLA’s in the 70-member Assembly, followed by the Congress at 19 and the BSP at 2.

Bageshwar, a Schedule Caste seat in the Kumaon region, has been held by BJP since 2007. The last time the Congress won here was in 2002. The constituency has 1.2 lakh voters across 188 polling booths.

Ghosi, Uttar Pradesh

A bypoll was called after serial party-hopper Dara Singh Chauhan resigned as the Samajwadi Party’s Ghosi MLA to rejoin the BJP earlier this year. In the 2022 Assembly polls, Chauhan won the Ghosi seat as an SP candidate, defeating the BJP’s Vijay Kumar Rajbhar by more than 22,000 votes.

In the 2022 Assembly polls, Chauhan won the Ghosi seat as an SP candidate, defeating the BJP’s Vijay Kumar Rajbhar by more than 22,000 votes.

Chauhan, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader, has previously been a member of the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and spent two separate stints each with the BJP and the SP. He was a Lok Sabha MP for the BSP and a member of BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet from 2017 to 2022.

Since the 1990s, the BJP, the BSP and the SP have taken turns winning the seat. The Congress hasn’t won here since 1989.

The BJP has decided to field Chauhan here once again over previous candidate Vijay Kumar Rajbhar, also an OBC leader. Party insiders said Chauhan was chosen so he could be inducted into the Cabinet if he wins. The SP candidate is Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput who was the Ghosi MLA from 2012 to 2017 but has lost in consecutive Assembly polls since then. The Congress has opted not to field a candidate and is backing its INDIA partner, even though the SP refused to withdraw its candidate in Uttarakhand’s Bageshwar by-poll. The BSP, too, is not contesting in the by-poll.

OBCs are the most dominant community in Ghosi. Among its 4.4 lakh voters across 340 polling booths, there are around 60,000 Rajbhar voters, 50,000 Chauhans (also known as Nonias), around 40,000 Yadavs and 60,000 Dalits. There are also around 90,000 Muslim voters and around 77,000 upper-caste Hindus, including 45,000 Bhumihars, 16,000 Rajputs and 6,000 Brahmins. In the past six assembly elections, Ghosi voters have elected an OBC MLA five times.

The SP is banking on its PDA – Pichde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities) – formula to win not only the by-poll but also the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. With its sizable OBC, Muslim and Dalit populations, the Ghosi assembly seat could be a testing ground for the PDA groups’ influence against the NDA.

The NDA currently has 280 MLAs in the 403-member Assembly, including 255 from the BJP. The INDIA bloc has 119 MLAs – 115 from the SP, 9 from the Rashtriya Lok Dal and 2 from the Congress. The BSP, which hasn’t allied with either the NDA or INDIA, has one MLA.

Dhupguri, West Bengal

In 2021, the BJP made its first significant foray into the West Bengal Assembly, winning 77 seats compared with just 3 in the previous election. In Dhupguri, the BJP’s Bishnu Pada Ray defeated the Trinamool Congress’s Mitali Roy by a narrow 4,300-vote margin. The constituency will now see a bypoll after Ray’s death in July.

In 2021, the BJP made its first significant foray into the West Bengal Assembly, winning 77 seats compared with just 3 in the previous election.

The BJP is fielding Tapasi Roy, the widow of CRPF jawan Jagannath Roy who was killed in a terrorist attack in Kashmir in 2021. Both the Trinamool and CPI(M) are fielding new candidates for the bypoll. The Trinamool’s Nirmal Chandra Roy, a professor at Dhupguri Girls College, and the CPI(M)’s Ishwar Chandra Roy, a folk artiste, will hope to take the seat away from the BJP.

With the Congress backing the CPI(M) against the TMC, the bypoll will see a contest between INDIA bloc members. The Congress has won this seat three times since Independence but the CPI(M) has been the dominant party here, winning the seat eight consecutive times between 1977 and 2011. The TMC’s Mitali Roy, who left the party to join the BJP recently, had won the seat in 2016 before losing to the BJP in 2021.

The major contest in the Schedule Caste-reserved seat is expected to be between the BJP and TMC. Wary of the BJP’s growing influence in north Bengal, the TMC has led campaigning with party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and promised to make Dhupguri a “sub-division by the end of this year.”

The constituency, located in Jalpaiguri district, is largely agricultural with many tea gardens. It has a considerable population of Rajbanshi and Matua caste groups among its 2.6 lakh voters across 260 booths.

Currently, the 294-member Assembly has 220 Trinamool MLAs and 69 from the BJP.