Yogi to address bypoll rally in Lakhimpur Kheri

Lucknow, Oct 28 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will address a bypoll rally in Lakhimpur Kheri's Gola Gokarannath on October 31.

By-election to the Gola Gokarannath Assembly seat is scheduled to be held on November 3.

The seat fell vacant following the demise of BJP MLA Arvind Giri in September.

The deceased MLA's son Aman Giri is now the BJP candidate while the Samajwadi Party has fielded Vinay Tiwari.

The Congress and BSP are not contesting the by-election.

The BJP has lined up rallies by senior party leaders in the by-elections which will see a direct contest between the saffron party and SP.

This will be the first electoral contest after the newly appointed UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh took over.

BJP sources said the party has appointed an in charge, a convener and a 'palak' for each of the 58 'shakti kendras', each comprising 7-8 polling booths.

"We are battle ready. The party never loses sight of any election," said state general secretary Anup Gupta, claiming the BJP would again win the seat.

The SP, on the other hand, is learnt to be treading cautiously and is banking on the sympathy wave in the aftermath of demise of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Sources said that Akhilesh Yadav or any other senior party leader is unlikely to campaign while leaving the ground to the party's cadres.

The SP leadership, however, has asked nearly 50 sitting and former legislators to carry out a silent campaign.

Gola Gokarannath happens to be a relatively new Assembly seat formed after the delimitation exercise of 2008.

The seat went to poll for the first time in 2012 Assembly elections, when Vinay Tiwari defeated Arvind Giri who was then contesting as a Congress candidate.