Madhya Pradesh's Damoh assembly bypoll on April 17, BJP set to field Lodhi

The bypoll was necessitated after Lodhi resigned from the Assembly and the Congress and joined the BJP in October last year.

cThe Damoh Assembly bypoll in Madhya Pradesh on April 17 is likely to be a fight between the BJP's Rahul Lodhi and the Congress' Ajay Tandon.

The first phase of voting for the three-phased elections to the decentralised tiers of local bodies at the village, block and district levels in Kerala will be conducted by the Kerala State Election Commission on Tuesday.(PTI/ File photo)

The bypoll was necessitated after Lodhi resigned from the Assembly and the Congress and joined the BJP in October last year.

Party sources said the BJP was almost certain to field Lodhi, while the Congress announced that Tandon would be its candidate.

Tandon had contested against the BJP's Jayant Mallaiya two times earlier. Mallaiya had won the Damoh seat six times between 1990 and 2013, before losing to Lodhi in 2018 by a slender margin of 798 votes.

In bypolls held for 28 seats last year, the BJP had managed to win 19, giving the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government a majority in the 230-member MP Assembly.