Bypolls in 13 assembly constituencies across 7 states to be held on July 10

All eyes will be on the Himachal bypolls as it will be a litmus test for the Congress, which faced a rout in the Lok Sabha polls - though it managed to win four out of six seats that went to bypolls simultaneously and ensured that the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu government cross the majority-mark.

New Delhi: Four seats in West Bengal, three in Himachal Pradesh, two in Uttarakhand and one each in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Bihar will go to bypolls in which three constituencies are held by BJP, two by Congress and one each by RJD, DMK, AAP, and Trinamool Congress besides the independents.

The notification for the polls will be released on June 14, while the last date for filing nominations is June 21. The final date of withdrawal of nominations is June 26. The counting of votes will be held on July 13.

All eyes will be on the Himachal bypolls as it will be a litmus test for the Congress, which faced a rout in Lok Sabha polls - though it managed to win four out of six seats that went to bypolls simultaneously and ensured that the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu government cross the majority-mark.

The bypolls were necessitated by the resignation of three independents – Hoshyar Singh, Ashish Sharma, and KL Thakur – who withdrew their support to the Congress government. Their resignations were accepted a day before the counting of votes of Lok Sabha elections and bypolls.

In a House of 68, at present there are three vacancies. Earlier, six Congress MLAs were disqualified for indiscipline and joined the BJP while the three independents also joined them.

At present, Congress has 38 seats while BJP has 27. Even if Congress loses all the three seats, it can still continue in the government.

Three seats in Bengal will go to bypolls following the resignation of three BJP MLAs – Krishna Kalyani (Raiganj), Mukut Mani Adhikari (Ranaghat Dakshin) and Biswajit Das (Bagda) – who joined the Trinamool Congress ahead of Lok Sabha elections and death of Trinamool MLA Sadhan Pandey (Maniktala).

Resignation of Congress MLA RS Bhandari (Badrinath) after joining BJP and death of BSP MLA Sarwat Karim Ansari have necessitated the bypolls in Uttarakhand. AAP MLA Sheetal Angural (Jalandhar-West) resigning and joining BJP has led to the bypoll in Punjab.

The resignation of Congress MLA Kamlesh Pratap Singh from Amarwara, which is in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh that is considered Congress leader Kamal Nath’s stronghold, and his joining the BJP has led to the bypoll in the seat and it would be a challenge for the Congress to ensure that it wins the seat to regain morale after losing all seats in Lok Sabha polls.

JD(U) MLA Bhima Barti from Rupali also resigned to join RJD while death of N Pugazhenti, a DMK MLA from Vikravandi, led to the bypolls in these seats.