New Delhi, November 3
Byelections to seven assembly constituencies spread across six states were held on Thursday with the voter turnout ranging from 31.74 per cent in Andheri (East) of Maharashtra to 77.55 per cent in Telangana’s Munugode seat.
Till last reports came in, the polling percentages in the five other seats were Mokama (53.45) and Gopalganj (51.48) of Bihar, Adampur (75.25) of Haryana, Gola Gokarannath (55.68) of Uttar Pradesh, and Dhamnagar (66.63) of Odisha. These figures are likely to change.
Officials said the bypolls were by and large peaceful barring some minor incidents.
Among the seven seats where bypolls are being held, the BJP held three seats and the Congress two, while the Shiv Sena and the RJD had one each. The contest is symbolic of the fierce turf war between the BJP and the regional parties.
For the bypolls in Bihar, the main contest is between the BJP and the RJD, and the saffron party’s main contenders in Haryana are the Congress, INLD and the AAP. In Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, the main contests are between the BJP and the TRS, SP and the BJD respectively.
While a victory in the bypolls will be inconsequential to their position in the assemblies, the parties have not taken the contest lightly and carried out a high-pitched campaign.
The counting of votes will take place on November 6.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party alleged that some polling centres were captured by workers of the ruling BJP. However, District Magistrate Mahendra Bahadur Singh ruled out the allegations, saying he personally visited the polling centres but found no such thing.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav alleged that police unnecessarily indulged in baton charge at some booths disrupting voting and at some places SP and Muslim voters were driven away. He also demanded an investigation into “why a BJP MLA kept roaming around with envelopes full of money in their car”.
There were reports of clashes between BJD and BJP in two polling booths in Odisha’s Rameswarpur when voting was underway, resulting in injuries to two persons.
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