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.
( With inputs from ANI )
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