Counting of votes in seven assembly seats across six states underway, BJP leads in four

Prestige battles are being fought in Bihar and Telangana, while a family legacy is on the line in Haryana.

After the first few rounds of counting, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leading in Uttar Pradesh's Gola Gokrannath, Haryana's Adampur, Bihar's Gopalganj and Odisha's Dhamnagar.

The Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has retained Bihar's Mokama.

Meanwhile, the K Chandrashekar's Rao's Telangana Rashtriya Samithi is ahead in Munugode and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction is set for a win in Mumbai's Andheri East seat.

Of the seven seats, the BJP held three, the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each before bypolls were necessitated.

Two of the seats are in Bihar and one each in UP, Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha.

In Gopalganj, the RJD is hoping to oust the BJP which has held it for nearly two decades now. It has put up Mohan Prasad Gupta against the BJP's Kusum Devi, whose husband Subhas Singh's death necessitated the election.

Maharashtra's Andheri East is seeing two firsts. It's the first poll fight after Shiv Sena was fragmented into two as Eknath Shinde unseated Uddhav Thackeray to become Chief Minister with BJP's help.