Campaigning for bypoll in Dadra & Nagar Haveli LS seat ends; Sena, BJP, Cong in fray

Voting to take place on October 30

Campaigning for by-election to the Dadra and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha seat ended on Wednesday evening and the constituency will see a three-way fight between the Shiv Sena and the Congress, who are allies in Maharashtra, and the BJP.

Voting for the seat (reserved for ST candidates), which fell vacant following the death of Mohan Delkar, the independent MP from the constituency, in February this year, will take place on October 30.

As per the poll schedule, the 'silence period' (when public rallies can not be organized by candidates) is 72 hours before the polling ends. The Lok Sabha seat is part of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.

While the Shiv Sena has fielded Mohan Delkar's wife Kalavati Delkar, the BJP has given ticket to Mahesh Gavit, who is fighting his first major election after his stint as a district panchayat councillor.

In this three-pronged fight, the Congress has chosen Mahesh Dhodi to contest from the seat.

The Shiv Sena and the Congress are constituents of the MVA government in Maharashtra, but are contesting against each other in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The Congress campaign remained lacklustre as no prominent party leader visited the constituency to canvass for Dhodi.

On the other hand, the BJP had sent a host of Union ministers, including Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, who is also the election in-charge for the party, Smriti Irani, Bharati Pawar and Parshottam Rupala, to campaign for Gavit. Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis also visited the constituency to support the BJP candidate.

The Shiv Sena had sent Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray and party MP Sanjay Raut to campaign for Kalavati Delkar. On February 22, Delkar allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a hotel in the Marine Drive area of south Mumbai.

Delkar, who had been a member of both the Congress and the BJP at different times of his political career, was elected seven times to the Lok Sabha from Dadra and Nagar Haveli. In 2019, he won the seat as an independent.

The counting of votes will be taken up on November 2.

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