India News | West Bengal: Polling Underway for Bypolls in Asansol, Ballygunge
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Polling is underway for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly byelections in West Bengal on Tuesday.
Ballygunge (West Bengal) [India], April 12 (ANI): Polling is underway for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly byelections in West Bengal on Tuesday.
Polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6.30 pm.
The bypolls were necessitated after former Union Minister Babul Supriyo resigned as the Lok Sabha MP of Asansol after resigning from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He later joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The Ballygunge Assembly seat bypoll was necessitated after the demise of state Minister Subrata Mukherjee.
Supriyo was a two-term BJP MP.
For the Ballygunge Assembly bypoll, the BJP has fielded Keya Ghosh while Saira Shah Halim is the CPI(M) candidate.
The TMC has fielded yesteryear actor Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol, which has a substantial Hindi-speaking population, while the BJP has nominated Asansol Dakshin MLA Agnimitra Paul from the constituency.
In the state Assembly elections last year, Trinamool Congress (TMC) won 213 seats while BJP on the other hand garnered 77 seats in the 294-seat state Assembly.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Supriyo had defeated TMC candidate Moon Moon Sen by a massive margin of 1,97,637 votes, securing 51.56 per cent of the total votes polled. In 2014, Supriyo's victory margin was 70,480 votes.
On the other hand, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defeated Shatrughan Sinha who was contesting as the Congress nominee from Patna Sahib seat.
The counting of votes will take place on Saturday, April 16. (ANI)
(The above story is verified and authored by ANI staff, ANI is South Asia's leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe. ANI brings the latest news on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Sports, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, & News. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)