Counting of votes in the bypolls to three assembly seats in Kerala, Uttarakhand and Odisha began at 8am on Friday.
The bypolls in Brajrajnagar constituency in Odisha and Thrikkakara seat in Kerala were necessitated by the death of the sitting legislators. The election in Champawat seat in Uttarakhand was necessitated by the resignation of the sitting BJP MLA, Kailash Gehtori, to make way for Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to contest and become an MLA to fulfil the constitutional requirement to hold office.
Voting for all three seats was held on May 31.
In Brajrajnagar, the main contenders are BJD's Alka Mohanty, BJP's Radharani Panda and Congress candidate Kishore Patel. Alka Mohanty is the wife of Brajrajnagar MLA Kishore Mohanty, whose death in 2021 led to the bypoll.
Like in Brajrajnagar, the widow of the previous MLA is a key contender in Thrikkakara. Uma Thomas, wife of late MLA P.T. Thomas, is the Congress candidate. Her main rival is Jo Joseph, backed by the ruling CPI(M). The BJP candidate in Thrikkakara is A.N. Radhakrishnan.
In Champawat, Dhami is locked in a straight contest with Congress's Nirmala Gehtori in the seat located in Kumaon region of the state. The other two candidates in the fray are Samajwadi Party's Manoj Kumar Bhatt and independent candidate Himashu Gadkoti.