Lucknow, 28 Oct: On October 31, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will address a bypoll rally at Lakhimpur Kheri’s Gola Gokarannath. On November 3, a by-election to the Gola Gokarannath Assembly seat is scheduled. The seat became vacant with the death of BJP MLA Arvind Giri in September.
Aman Giri, the dead MLA’s son, is now the BJP candidate, while Vinay Tiwari is the Samajwadi Party candidate. The Congress and the BSP will not contest in the by-election. The BJP has scheduled rallies by top party officials in by-elections that would pit the saffron party against the SP.
This would be the first election after newly elected UP BJP chairman Bhupendra Chaudhary and state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh assumed office.
According to BJP sources, the party has nominated an in charge, a coordinator, and a ‘palak’ for each of the 58’shakti kendras,’ which each have 7-8 voting booths. “We are prepared for combat. The party is never out of sight of an election “Anup Gupta, state general secretary, predicted that the BJP will reclaim the seat.
The SP, on the other hand, is said to be treading carefully and counting on the sympathy wave created by the death of party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. According to sources, Akhilesh Yadav and other top party leaders are unlikely to campaign while leaving the field to party members.
However, the SP leadership has requested around 50 serving and past MLAs to conduct a quiet campaign. Gola Gokarannath is a relatively new Assembly seat created following the 2008 delimitation process. Vinay Tiwari won the seat for the first time in the 2012 Assembly elections, defeating Arvind Giri, who was running as a Congress candidate at the time.
Later, Arvind Giri consequently won the seat in 2017 and 2022 assembly elections on BJP ticket.
