PM Modi urged people to come out and vote in large numbers as voting for`byelections in Punjab , UP, Odisha and Meghalaya commenced.
The BJP won a spectacular victory in Gujarat and is the only party other than the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to have won seven straight Assembly elections in a state.
Samajwadi Party candidate Dimple Yadav is leading in Mainpuri with a comfortable lead of over one lakh votes.
The SP chief, while addressing Ex-Servicemen Conference in poll-bound Mainpuri asserted that no one was given a job after the recruitment rally under the scheme in Uttar Pradesh's Farrukhabad.
40-star campaigners will comprise of Rajnath Singh, CM Yogi Adityanath, Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brijesh Pathak.
The Assembly seats are Padampur (Odisha), Sardarshahar (Rajasthan), Kurhani (Bihar), Bhanupratappur (Chhattisgarh) and Rampur (Uttar Pradesh). The Parliamentary seat is Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh).
By-elections will be held from 7 am to 6 pm amid tight security and the counting of votes will be conducted on November 6.
The swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected Trinamool Congress legislator from the Ballygunge Assembly constituency and the singer-turned politician, Babul Supriyo has become a new tussle factor between the Governor House and the state Assembly.
Eight Assembly seats are up for polls in Gujarat, seven in Uttar Pradesh, two each in Odisha, Nagaland, Karnataka, and Jharkhand; and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Haryana.
High Court on Wednesday asked that magistrates of the districts under its jurisdiction not give permission to any candidate or political party for public gatherings unless they can prove that virtual election campaign is not possible.
