By-elections will be held on 31 assembly seats across 10 states and the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat of Kerala. Four of the assembly seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes and six for Scheduled Tribes.
Elections will be held on seven seats in Rajasthan, six seats in West Bengal, five in Assam, four in Bihar, three in Kerala, two seats in Madhya Pradesh and one in Meghalaya, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
In two seats of Sikkim, candidates of Sikkim Krantikari Morcha were declared unopposed winners on October 30.
For this phase In Jharkhand, the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has fielded 23 candidates, its allies Congress 17 and Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal five. The Opposition BJP has fielded 36 candidates,, Janata Dal United (JDU) two and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party seven candidates.
Key candidates today include former Chief Minister  Champai Soren and his son Babulal Soren, former Chief Minister Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda, Madhu Koda’s wife Geeta Koda and Raghuvar Das’s daughter-in-law Purnima Sahu.
The JMM-led coalition is hoping for a second term riding on its welfare schemes including Maiyan Samman Yojana. The NDA has promised a stop to infiltration and corruption by the Grand ALliance government, pointing to the arrest of Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a corruption case.
The BJP’s key promises include “driving out infiltrators”, implementing Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Rs 2,100 per month to every woman and 5 lakh employment opportunities for the youth.
The NDA had carried out its customary high-voltage star-studded campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP chief JP Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma held a number of rallies.
In 2019, the JMM had won 30 seats and the BJP managed 25, down from 37 in 2014. The JMM-Congress-RJD alliance won a comfortable majority with 47 seats.
The second phase of elections will be held on November 20 while the votes will be counted on November 23.