PremiumCounting of votes will be held on today for by-election in the high-profile Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, where the Samajwadi Party is locked in a battle for prestige with the BJP.
A high-stakes contest was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri seat, where the by-election was necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October. Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is the SP candidate in Mainpuri, a pocket borough of the Yadav family, while BJP has fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidant of Mulayam's brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.
A win for Samajwadi Party could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
With the Congress and the BSP keeping away from the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, it would be a direct fight between the BJP and Samajwadi Party and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in all three places.