New Delhi: The stage is set for four Lok Sabha and ten assembly bypolls across the country on Monday however all eyes will be on Kairana Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh, where a joint opposition will take on the BJP. The result could control the tone and tenor for the 2019 general elections for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition.

The opposition hopes to repeat the success of the Gorakhpur and Phulpur by-elections in March in which the ruling BJP suffered unexpected defeats.Kairana, around 630km from Lucknow, has five assembly segments and an electorate of nearly 1.7 million with a significant number of Muslims, Jats and Dalit voters.

The constituency fell vacant after the death of BJP parliamentarian Hukum Singh, whose daughter Mriganka Singh is the party’s candidate for the bypoll. She is up against the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s (RLD) Tabassum Hasan, who is supported by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

RLD supporter Abdul Hakeem Khan said he had never seen an election in which a combined opposition has challenged the ruling party. “This is the beauty of our democracy,” he said.

The BJP is trying to retain the seat and send a message to voters, party cadre as well as the opposition parties that the drubbing in Gorakhpur and Phulpur was an aberration. Kairana has been in the news over the reported 2016 exodus of Hindu families from the area. RLD candidate Hasan said that “both Hindus and Muslims live in peace” in Kairana.