The count starts at 8 am and results are usually expected by noon. (Image for representation)
New Delhi:
Election Results: The results of the elections in the seven parliamentary seats in six states will be announced today. Prestige wars are waged in Bihar and Telangana, and a family legacy is at stake in Haryana.
Here are 10 points that sum up what these choices mean:
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BJP has won at Uttar Pradesh’s Gola Gokrannath, Haryana’s Adampur and Bihar’s Gopalganj and is leading in Odisha’s Dhamnagar. Rashtriya Janata led by Tejashwi Yadav won at Dal Bihar’s Mokama. Telangana Rashtriya Samithi of K Chandrashekar’s Rao is ahead on Munugode and the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray is poised for victory in Mumbai’s Andheri East seat.
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BJP from seven seats hero three, Congress two, Shiv Sena and RJD each had one before side votes were required. Two of the seats are in Bihar and each in UP, Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha.
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Bihar is seeing its first contest – in two seats – since Nitish Kumar left BJP to revive JDU’s alliance with Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD. RJD candidate Anant Singh’s wife, Neelam Devi, who was disqualified after being found guilty of illegal weapon possession, holds the lead in Mokama. In Gopalganj, RJD hopes to overthrow BJP, which it has held for almost two decades. She pitted Mohan Prasad Gupta against BJP’s Kusum Devi, whose death necessitated the election of her husband Subhas Singh.
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In Haryana, Adampur, the family seat of former prime minister Bhajan Lal, will decide whether his grandson Bhavya Bishnoi can carry forward his 68-year legacy after he passes from Congress to the BJP. Bhavya’s father, Kuldeep Bishnoi, who led the family to the BJP, resigned as Adampur MLA while fleeing, which led to a side poll.
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Andheri East of Maharashtra sees two firsts. This is the first poll battle since Shiv Sena split in two as Eknath Shinde ousted Uddhav Thackeray to become Prime Minister with the help of BJP. And it’s the first in decades that the Thackerays-led Sena fight with a new name – Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) – and a new symbol, the ‘torch’ or flaming torch.
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Shiv Sena (Uddhav) candidate Rutuja Latke is the widow of former Sena MLA from Andheri (East) who died in Dubai in May 2022 after a heart attack. The BJP had withdrawn its nomination as part of “political tradition” in the polls required by the death of a leader.
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In Telangana, Munugode saw the ruling TRS and its sworn rival, the BJP, battle it out on the ground, making claims containing “millions of rupees”, especially given Prime Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s desire to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024. Congress MLA had resigned and is now fighting for the BJP ticket.
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In Odisha’s Dhamnagar, too, the ruling regional party BJD faces off against the BJP. BJP won last time but the death of MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi led to this contest. He took his son to the field.
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BJP is attempting to retain the Gola Gokarannath seat, which was vacated after the death of MLA Arvind Giri on September 6 at its stronghold UP. (BJP) and Vinay Tiwari of Samajwadi Party, a former MLA.
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None of these competitions are likely to break the math of current state governments. However, with regional parties looking to form a united front for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections – just a year and a half later – these could serve as boosters or detractors, depending on the results.