Peaceful bypolls in five assembly seats

Polling for five assembly bypolls held in four states remained by and large peaceful with webcasting done at all but one polling station. Webcasting was implemented for the first time in 1,353 of the 1,354 polling stations set up across four states, the poll authority said. The bypolls were held in one assembly segment each in Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala and two assembly segments in Gujarat.

Brisk polling was recorded in Kaliganj by-poll in West Bengal's Nadia district with 69.85% polling recorded till 5 pm. Unlike all recent polls in Bengal, this time's polling was almost incident-free and peaceful. "There have been no major incidents in the by-poll in Kaliganj on Thursday and by far it has been a very peaceful poll," WB-CEO Manoj Agarwal told ET. The Kaliganj bypoll was necessitated following the demise of the Trinamool Congress legislator Nasiruddin Ahmed in February this year. A triangular contest among BJP, Congress and AAP - last seen in 2022 - was witnessed in Gujarat's Visavadar (Junagadh district) and Kadi (Mehsana district) by-elections. In Visavadar, a Patidar-dominated seat and BJP stronghold until 2012, AAP's Gopal Italia is in contest with BJP's Kirit Patel and Congress' Nitin Ranpariya. In Kadi (SC), the contest is between BJP candidate Rajendra Chavda, Congress's Ramesh Chavda and AAP's Jagdish Chavda. In Visavadar, the polling percentage was approximately 60%, while in Kadi it was around 57% till the last reports came in.

Kerala's Nilambur assembly constituency also saw a steady turnout with 60% votes polled till around 3 pm. Key contenders here are ruling LDF pick M Swaraj, Aryadan Shoukath (Congress-led UDF), Trinamool Congress state convener and independent candidate PV Anvar, and Mohan George of the BJP-led NDA.


In Punjab, polling went on smoothly for the Ludhiana West assembly bypoll with 40% polling recorded till 3 pm. The seat fell vacant following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.