BJP announces candidates for Kairana, Noorpur bypolls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday (May 8) announced its candidates for the by polls on May 28 which includes Kairana Lok Sabha seat and Noorpur assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh among others. By polls will also be held in Jharkhand's Gomia assembly seat, Uttarakhand's Tharali assembly seat and West Bengal's Maheshtala assembly seat on May 28.

Of all these seats, the bypolls in Kairana is of great importance to the BJP as it would like to send a message to voters, cadres as well as the opposition that the drubbing in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls was a thing of the past. The BJP has fielded Mriganka Singh from Kairana Lok Sabha seat while from Noorpur assembly seat it has fielded Avani Singh.

The Kairana and Noorpur seats fell vacant following the deaths of BJP lawmakers Hukum Singh and Lokendra Singh.

Complete list of BJP's candidates for May 28 bypolls:

Hukum Singh had won the Kairana Lok Sabha poll in 2014 by getting 5.65 lakh votes. His closest rival, SP's Nahid Hassan, managed 3.30 lakh votes. In the state Assembly elections last year, BJP's Lokendra won the Noorpur constituency. He got 79,000 votes, while SP candidate Naim-ul-Hassan managed 66,436 votes. Kairana Lok Sabha seat has around 17 lakh voters. They include around three lakh Muslims, four lakh backward castes (Jat, Gujjar, Saini, Kashyap, Prajapati, and others) and about 1.5 lakh Jatav Dalits.

In Jharkhand's Gomia assembly seat, the bypolls were necessiated after stiiting Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA Yogendra Mahto was in January convicted and sentenced to three years in jail by a local court in an 18-year-old case of coal theft. BJP has fielded Madhavlal Singh for Gomia bypolls. Madhavlal Singh won the Gomia Assembly seat in 1985, 1990 and 2000 as an Independent. He was re-elected again in 2009 as a Congress nominee. In 2014, he contested this seat as a BJP candidate but lost to Yogendra Mahto of the JMM by a margin of 37,514 votes.

The Maheshtala Assembly seat in South 24 Parganas district fell vacant after the death of its two-time representative TMC's Kasturi Das in February this year. The seat had been a CPM bastion till 2011 when it lost to the Trinamool Congress, which grabbed power in the state. The BJP has Sujit Ghosh from Maheshtala for May 28 by elections.

The Samajwadi Party had caused a major upset in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha by-elections recently, wresting both the prestigious seats -- vacated by Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Prasad Maurya after becoming the state chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively -- with the Bahujan Samaj Party extending support to its candidates. The victory had shown a way to the Opposition to come together for countering the BJP's victory march, especially in the run-up to the general elections, due to be held in 2019.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs