Bypolls: Counting of votes today

New Delhi: Counting of votes will take place on Tuesday in three Lok Sabha and 29 assembly constituencies spread across 13 states and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli where by-elections were held on October 30.

INLD leader Abhay Chautala, who quit the Haryana assembly in protest against the three new central agri laws, Congress' Pratibha Singh, wife of late chief minister Virbhadra Singh, former national footballer Eugeneson Lyngdoh are among the prominent candidates whose fate will be decided.

The assembly by-elections which saw a high turnout were held in five seats in Assam, four in West Bengal, three each in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, two each in Bihar, Karnataka and Rajasthan and one seat each is in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Mizoram and Telangana.

Out of the 29 Assembly seats, the BJP had won in around half a dozen constituencies earlier, the Congress had nine, while the rest were with the regional parties. The seats where Lok Sabha by-elections were held are Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh. In all the three Lok Sabha constituencies, the sitting members had died.

The Mandi seat fell vacant after the death of Ramswaroop Sharma (BJP) in March. The bye-election to the Khandwa parliamentary constituency was necessitated following the death of BJP member Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan while in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, it was due to the demise of Independent Lok Sabha member Mohan Delkar.