Voting begins for bypoll in U.P.’s Milkipur Assembly constituency

Voting underway in Milkipur Assembly bypoll with main contest between Samajwadi Party and BJP candidates.

Voting for the bypoll in Milkipur Assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh began on Wednesday (February 5, 2025) morning.

The fate of 10 candidates in the fray will be decided by the Scheduled Castes (SC)-reserved constituency's 3,70,829 voters but the main contest is expected to be between Samajwadi Party's Ajit Prasad and the BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan.

The stakes in the bypoll in Milkipur, which is in Ayodhya district, were raised by SP's Awadhesh Prasad's surprise win from Faizabad in last year's Lok Sabha polls that came just months after the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Voting started at 7 am and will continue till 5 pm, officials said.

There are 255 polling centres and 414 polling stations for the election.

"Webcasting will be conducted at 210 polling stations and videography at 25 stations. Micro-observers are deployed at 71 polling centres, with nine flying squads, nine static surveillance teams, six video surveillance teams, two super zonal magistrates, four zonal magistrates and 41 sector magistrates. Voting will be conducted with the assistance of civil police, PAC, and paramilitary forces," they said.

More than 1.93 lakh male voters, and over 1.78 lakh female voters and eight third-gender people are registered to vote for the bypoll. There are 4,811 first-time voters in the Assembly constituency.