Of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP won 33 with its allies RLD and Apna Dal (Soneylal) getting, respectively, two and one, while the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP bagged 37 seats with its INDIA partner Congress winning six.

In the 2022 Assembly polls, out of 493 seats, the BJP had won 255 as against the SP’s 111 and the Congress’s two.

Of the 10 Assembly seats bound for the upcoming bypolls, five were won by the SP in the 2022 elections, three by the BJP and one each by its NDA allies NISHAD party and RLD (an SP partner in 2022). While the BJP’s allies are looking to contest from their respective seats in the bypolls, recent election results have also made the Congress hopeful of contesting a couple of seats as part of its alliance with the SP. Here is a look at the current equations in the 10 seats.

Karhal

The Karhal seat in Mainpuri district was won by Akhilesh Yadav in the 2022 polls, when he defeated BJP candidate SP Singh Baghel, who has now been elected on his party ticket from the Agra parliamentary constituency. Karhal has been a stronghold of the SP, which has been winning it since the early 1990s.

The SP is confident of retaining the seat. It is likely to field one of the members of the Akhilesh Yadav family in the by-election, sources said. The BJP is also gearing up to give a strong fight to the SP in order to make its presence felt in the region.

Milkipur

The Milkipur Assembly seat in Ayodhya district has fallen vacant as its SP MLA Awadhesh Prasad, who had defeated the BJP’s Baba Gorakhnath in 2022, has been elected as the Faizabad (Ayodhya) MP in the Lok Sabha elections.

In a result that shocked the BJP, its sitting Ayodhya MP Lallu Singh was trounced by Awadesh by 54,567 votes. The BJP was hoping that the Ram Temple’s consecration and the infrastructural push in and around Ayodhya would help it retain the seat by a huge margin.

The Milkipur bypoll is thus set to be a prestige fight between the BJP and the SP, which has been going all out now to promote Awadhesh, who belongs to the Pasi (Dalit) community. Although the SP is confident of retaining the Milkipur seat — one of the segments of the Ayodhya Lok Sabha constituency — the BJP has already started working on its plan to wrest the seat in a bid to re-establish its dominance in the crucial belt.

Khair

The Khair Assembly seat in Aligarh district has become vacant as two-term sitting BJP MLA and state revenue minister Anoop Pradhan Valmiki has got elected from the Hathras (SC-reserved) Lok Sabha constituency. Apart from the BJP, the RLD and the BSP have had a strong presence in this seat in the past.

In Aligarh, the sitting BJP MP Satish Kumar Gautam managed to retain the seat, but SP nominee Brijendra Singh gave him a tough fight. Interestingly, the three-term MP Gautam used to face challenge from the BSP candidates in the constituency in the previous polls, but this time the SP candidate gave him a scare, even as he managed to win by 15,647 votes.

Meerapur

The Meerapur Assembly seat in Muzaffarnagar district comes under the Bijnor Lok Sabha constituency. In 2022, RLD’s Chandan Chauhan, when the party was in alliance with the SP, had won the seat in a close fight with the BJP’s Prashant Chaudhary. In the 2017 and 2012 Assembly elections, the seat had been won by the BJP and the BSP candidates respectively. In 2017, the SP was in second place in this seat, while it was at fourth place in 2012.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, RLD MLA Chauhan has won from the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat, defeating Deepak Saini of the SP by about 37,000 votes. While the Congress is eyeing Meerapur, the SP is also making a claim on this seat in light of its recent performance.

Kundarki

Kundarki is located in Moradabad district, whose incumbent SP MLA Zia-ur-Rehman has now been elected from the Sambhal Lok Sabha constituency. Kundarki falls under the Sambhal Lok Sabha constituency along with another Assembly seat from Moradabad district, Bilari.

Like Sambhal, the Kundarki Assembly seat has been an SP bastion. Following the demise of former SP veteran and Sambhal MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq, the SP fielded his son Zia-ur Rehman from the constituency in the recent polls, who defeated BJP candidate PL Saini. Its fresh victory has raised the morale of the SP workers in the Kundarki seat, which has a significant minority population.

Ghaziabad Sadar

The Ghaziabad Sadar seat in Ghaziabad district has been vacated as its sitting MLA from the BJP, Atul Garg, has now got elected from the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha constituency on the party’s ticket. While Atul had won in 2022 defeating the SP’s Vishal Verma, the Congress and the BSP had also been the leading contenders from the seat in the previous polls.

Atul has won the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha constituency defeating Dolly Sharma of the Congress. The constituency has been a BJP bastion as it had been won by Rajnath Singh and VK Singh in the past.

While the BJP is scaling up attempts to retain Ghaziabad Sadar, the Congress is hoping to get the seat allotted by the SP for its candidate, pointing to its support base here.

Phulpur

The sitting BJP MLA from the Phulpur seat in Prayagraj district, Praveen Patel, has now been elected on the party’s ticket from the Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency. The SP has taken on the BJP strongly in these seats.

SP candidate Amarnath Maurya lost to Praveen in the Lok Sabha elections by just about 4,000 votes. This has boosted the SP’s confidence in its aim to wrest the Assembly seat in the bypoll. The BJP has also started the process to identify its “best possible candidate” here, sources said.

Manjhwa

The Manjhwa seat in Mirzapur district has been vacated as its sitting MLA from the NISHAD party, Vinod Kumar Bind, has now won from the Bhadohi Lok Sabha constituency on the BJP ticket.

In 2017, the BJP had wrested Manjhwa from the BSP. While the NISHAD party is hoping to get this seat again from its senior partner BJP, the SP, which also has a strong presence in this seat, is hoping to gain ground in alliance with the Congress. In the Lok Sabha elections, the SP had been able to get the support of a significant section of most backward castes like Binds, who are in sizeable numbers in this seat.

Kateri

The Kateri Assembly seat in Ambedkar Nagar district saw its sitting SP MLA Lalji Verma getting elected from the Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat by defeating the incumbent Ritesh Pandey, a BSP MP who had switched to the BJP to contest the election on his ticket.

This seat that has been with either the BSP or the SP since 1990s. While the BSP has a strong presence in this area, its candidate was pushed to third place in the Lok Sabha elections in the wake of Ritesh’s defection. This has given an edge to the SP in the by-election now. The SP is again hoping to attract the votes of a significant section of the SC votes with support from the Congress, which was seen in the Lok Sabha polls too.

Sishamau

The Sishamau seat in Kanpur district was vacated following the disqualification of its SP MLA Irfan Solanki after he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in an arson case.

The Kanpur Lok Sabha constituency has been won by the BJP in a close contest with the Congress. This has given hope to the Congress to make its claim on the Sishamau seat. Solanki has been a three-term SP MLA, but prior to that the Congress had won the seat twice. On its part, the BJP, which has a strong footprint in the region, has also been looking to clinch the Assembly bypoll from the seat.