The counting of votes for the by-elections held on July 10 in 13 legislative assembly seats across Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh began on Saturday morning.
The constituencies included Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda, and Maniktala in West Bengal; Dehra, Hamirpur, and Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh; Badrinath and Manglaur in Uttarakhand; Jalandhar West in Punjab; Rupauli in Bihar; Vikravandi in Tamil Nadu; and Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh.
In Himachal Pradesh, voter turnout ranged between 63% and 75% across three assembly constituencies. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife, Kamlesh Thakur, contested in Dehra, while Pushpinder Verma and Hardeep Singh Baba were fielded in Hamirpur and Nalagarh respectively by the Congress.
West Bengal recorded a 62.71% voter turnout in its four assembly constituencies. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress aimed to maintain its recent electoral success, while the BJP sought to recover lost ground after the Lok Sabha elections.
Violence marred polling in Uttarakhand's Manglaur constituency, despite a high turnout of 67.28%. The BJP and Congress contested fiercely in the Badrinath bypoll.
In Bihar, over 57% of voters turned out for the Rupauli assembly seat, vacated by former JD(U) MLA Bima Bharti. Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh's Amarwara (ST) seat saw a 78.71% voter turnout, following the defection of Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah to the BJP.
Tamil Nadu's Vikravandi constituency recorded an impressive 82.48% turnout, with the ruling DMK facing challenges from PMK and Naam Tamilar Katchi candidates. Punjab's Jalandhar West saw a 55% turnout, with a multi-cornered contest among AAP, BJP, and Congress candidates.
The results will determine the political landscape in these states, closely watched by major parties including BJP, Congress, TMC, DMK, and AAP.
