UP bypolls: BJP-SP direct fight in Gola Gokarannath seat as Cong, BSP opt out

The bypolls to the Gola Gokarannath Assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh are set to witness a contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party as the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party opted out of the electoral battle.

A total of seven candidates have filed papers for the elections, for which the date for filing nominations ended on Friday.

The bypolls to the constituency were necessitated by the death of sitting MLA Arvind Giri on September 6.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded his son Aman Giri for the bypolls while the Samajwadi Party has given ticket to former MLA Vinay Tiwari.

District Congress Committee president Prahlad Patel told PTI that his party leadership decided not to field its candidate owing to preparations for the elections in other states.

On the last day of filing of papers, Aman Giri and Vinay Tiwari filed another set of papers. Two more candidates filed their nominations.

With this, there are a total of seven candidates in the fray for the bypolls, election officials said.

The scrutiny of nomination papers will be carried out on October 15 while the last date for the withdrawal of nominations is October 17.

The constituency had come into existence in 2012 when a delimitation exercise was carried out by the Election Commission.

In 2012, Vinay Tiwari had won the elections, defeating Simmi Bano of the BSP with a margin of 19,329 votes.

Arvind Giri, who had then contested on the Congress ticket, stood on the third spot.

During the 2017 polls, Arvind Giri joined the BJP and won the contest against Tiwari. BSP candidate BS Kanaujia stood third.

In the assembly polls earlier this year, Giri retained his seat.

Giri bagged 1,26,534 votes defeating Vinay Tiwari with a margin of 29,294 votes. Tiwari got 97,240 votes.

The bypolls will be held on November 3 while the counting of votes will take place on November 6.