Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for by-elections in 6  assembly constituencies in 5 states and the high-profile Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, where the Samajwadi Party is locked in a battle for prestige with the BJP. 

Rampur and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where results will be declared on December 8, coinciding with the ballot count for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. 

A high-stakes contest was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri seat, where the by-poll has become necessary with the demise of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October, and in Rampur Sadar seat that fell vacant due to senior SP leader Azam Khan's disqualification. 

Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is the SP candidate in Mainpuri, a pocket borough of the Yadav family, while BJP has fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidant of Mulayam's brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.

 A win for Samad could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.

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