New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The Election Commission said Monday it was all set for counting of votes in a Lok Sabha and 31 assembly constituencies across seven states that went to the polls Saturday.
The counting of the hundreds of thousands of votes will start at 8 a.m. and most results are expected by noon.

The by-elections were held in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad Lok Sabha and 11 assembly constituencies, West Bengal’s 10 assembly constituencies, three in Kerala, two each in Rajasthan, Assam and Himachal Pradesh and in one constituency in Chhattisgarh.

It was the first popularity test after last month’s assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.

The results will have politically wide-ranging implications in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, where the Left Front is on the defensive in the face of an aggressive Trinamool Congress and rising Maoist violence.

The Firozabad battle is a matter of prestige for the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.

Congress candidate and movie star Raj Babbar took on Dimple Yadav, daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, making it a battle of prestige.

In Kerala, elections were held in Kannur, Ernakulam and Alappuzha, in Rajasthan in Todabhim and Salumbar, in Assam in Salmara South and Dhekiajuli, in Himachal Pradesh in Rohru and Jawali and in Chhattisgarh’s Vaishali Nagar constituency.

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