Chhanbey, Suar constituencies to vote on May 10 in UP Bypoll 2023

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday announced that the elections for Chhanbey and Suar constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held on May 10 and the votes will be counted on May 13.

In its notification, the electoral body said that the last date for filing nominations is April 20.

Chhanbey Assembly Constituency

The Chhanbey seat in Mirzapur fell vacant following the demise of Apna Dal (Sonelal) MLA Rahul Prakash Kol in early February. He won the constituency in 2022, defeating Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Kriti Kola by a margin of 38,113 votes. Rahul Prakash Kol got 1,02,502 votes (47.29%) while Kirti Kol was second with 64,389 votes (29.71%).

Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Dhaneshwar Gautam finished third with 32,145 votes (14.83%) and Congress candidate Bhagwati Prasad Chaudhary got just 3,935 votes (1.82%).

Apna Dal (Sonelal) contested the 2022 by-election along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and won 12 seats with 1,493,181 votes.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Apna Dal (Sonelal) in alliance with BJP fielded Anupriya Patel Singh from Mirzapur and Pakauri Lal from Robertsganj and won both seats.

According to sources, the BJP may try to win votes in the upcoming polls using the likability factor.

Suar Assembly Constituency

The election to the Suar seat was necessitated after Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA and Azam Khan's son Abdullah Azam Khan were disqualified following an irregularity in the Allahabad High Court election declaration dated 16 December 2019.

Abdullah Azam Khan won the 2022 constituency by defeating Apna Dal (Sonelal) candidate Haidar Ali Khan by a margin of 61,103 votes. Abdullah got 1,26,162 votes (59.19%). Haidar Ali was second with 65,059 votes (30.52%). Adhyapak Shanker Lal of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) finished third with 15,035 votes (7.05%).