UP By-Elections 2024: By-elections are being held on nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. The contest on these nine seats is mainly believed to be between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), but the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has made the contest interesting by fielding its candidates on these seats. BSP generally does not contest by-elections, but fielding candidates in UP is being seen as one of its strategies. BSP is not taking the by-elections of these seats lightly, this can be understood from the statement of party supremo Mayawati. Mayawati has claimed that BJP and SP have come together in the by-elections. The BSP supremo says that ever since they have fielded their candidates for the November 20 elections, both have lost their sleep. Political analysts believe that SP will suffer more due to BSP contesting the elections.

BSP came second on one seat Khair

In the 2022 assembly elections, out of these nine seats, four were won by the Samajwadi Party, three by BJP, and one each by RLD and Nishad Party. In this election, BSP came second on only one seat, the Khair seat of Aligarh, which was reserved for the SC category. It came third on seven seats, Katehari, Phulpur, Meerapur, Karhal, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, and Majhawan. Among these, its performance was best on Khair's seat. It got about 26 percent votes on this seat.

RLD was then with SP

In Khair's seat, it lost to the BJP candidate by more than 74,000 votes. RLD, which was with SP at that time, came third, getting 16.57 percent votes. RLD is currently a part of the BJP-led NDA. In the last election, SP won the Katehari seat. On this seat, it defeated the candidate of BJP's ally Nishad Party by a margin of 7696 votes. BSP got 58,482 votes on this seat. Its vote percentage was 23.62.

Muslim candidate fielded on Kundarki seat

In this bye-election, all the three parties have fielded OBC candidates for this seat. BJP had defeated SP in Phul. pur, an OBC-dominated seat. BSP had come third on this seat. While BJP and SP have fielded OBC candidates on Majhawan seat, BSP has bet on a Brahmin face. Both SP and BSP have fielded Muslim candidates on Meerapur seat. For the j Pratap Yadav of Akhilesh Yadav family is in the fray on SP's stronghold Karhal seat. BJP has for the ven a ticket to Tej Pratap's uncle on this seat. BSP has given ticket to OBC leader Avinash Kumar Shakya on this seat. BSP has fielded a Muslim candidate on Kundarki seat.