By IANS,
Chandigarh : Campaigning by various political parties and candidates for the by-elections to the Adampur and Ratia assembly seats in Haryana ended Monday evening.
Voting for both assembly seats will take place Wednesday (Nov 30), Haryana Chief Electoral Officer Sumita Mishra said here.
“Election campaign in both Ratia and Adampur assembly constituencies ended at 5 p.m. today (Monday). As many as 16 candidates are in fray in Ratia assembly constituency and 21 candidates in Adampur assembly constituency,” Mishra said.
She said that all arrangements have been made to conduct free, fair and peaceful by-elections in both constituencies.
A total of 137,949 electors in Adampur and 176,129 electors in Ratia constituency are eligible to cast their votes, she said.
The Adampur seat in Hisar district fell vacant last month following the election of Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi to parliament from the Hisar parliamentary constituency.
The Ratia seat had fallen vacant September this year after the death of sitting Indian National Lok Dal legislator Gian Chand Odh following illness.
While Adampur is a stronghold of the family of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, whose son is Kuldeep Bishnoi, the Ratia seat is considered a stronghold of the INLD. The ruling Congress and HJC-BJP combine are giving a tough fight to the INLD for this seat in a triangular contest.
The contest for both seats will be a litmus test for Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who heads the Congress-led government, as the Congress candidate in the Hisar Lok Sabha by-election had finished a poor third and even lost his security deposit.
The counting of votes in both bypolls will take place Dec 4, Mishra added.