The public campaigning for the bypoll in the Amarwara Assembly seat of the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh ended on Monday evening two days ahead of voting to be held on 10 July.
While there are nine candidates in the fray for the seat, the main contest is between Congress candidate Dheeran Shah Invati and the BJP’s Kamlesh Shah, who had won on a Congress ticket in the 2023 Assembly polls.
Shah’s switch to the BJP necessitated the by-poll. A three-time Congress MLA and close confidante of former Congress CM Kamal Nath, he quit the grand old party on 29 March, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. He, later, resigned from the state assembly necessitating the by-poll.
In the 2023 assembly polls at Amarwara, Shah defeated the BJP’s Monika Manmohan Shah Batti by a margin of 25086 votes.
After 1972, the BJP won at Amarwara only twice in 1990 and 2008.
Congress won nine times while the tribal outfit Gondwana Ganatantra Party (GGP) won the seat in 2003.
While the polling will take place on 10 July, counting of votes will be held on 13 July.