RK Nagar peaceful, 77% voter turnout
CHENNAI: Polling for the RK Nagar assembly bypoll ended without any major incident, with 77% of the voters exercising their franchise by 5pm.
Polling, which was a little over 20% at around 11am, saw a spurt after the 2G verdict acquitting DMK leaders — A Raja and Kanimozhi — was announced by a special CBI court. Nine election observers were posted by the Election Commission (EC).
AIADMK fielded its veteran leader E Madhusudhanan against rebel AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran contesting as an Independent. DMK candidate N Marudhu Ganesh completes the triangular contest, even though for the record, the BJP is also contesting. It has fielded local party worker K Nagarajan as its candidate. In all, there were 59 candidates in the fray. The counting of votes will take place on December 24. Elaborate security arrangements were made with around 15 companies of paramilitary forces and over 3,000 security personnel posted across the constituency.
RK Nagar has 2.26 lakh voters of whom 1.16 lakh are women.
Chennai police commissioner AK Viswanathan was on the spot, overseeing the law and order situation. The DMK had alleged that police had helped the ruling party distribute money to voters.
The bypoll to the same constituency was countermanded in April this year when complaints of large-scale bribery were made and I-T officials recovered a sum of ₹89 crore from an aide of state health minister C Vijayabhaskar.
It was at the prodding of the Madras HC that the EC held the bypoll. The HC had, on November 21, ordered the poll panel to hold a by-election before December 31. MIDNAPORE: Polling was largely peaceful in the Sabang assembly bypoll in West Bengal where 83% polling was recorded till 5pm on Thursday. VVPATS were deployed in every polling station.
The counting will take place on December 24. The main contenders are Gita Bhunia from ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Antara Bhattacharya of the BJP.
The Sabang bypolls are crucial as they will be a test for Mukul Roy, who switched to the BJP from the TMC early in November. The BJP is banking on the former railway minister to build the party’s grassroots-level reach.
For BJP, Bengal is a focus state for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, where the party wants to secure 22 of the 44 seats. It expects Roy to help put in place the machinery by the 2018 rural polls that will be a rehearsal for the LS elections.
TMC nominated Bhunia, the wife of Manas Bhunia, who won the seat in 2016 for the seventh time. In 2016, Manas Bhunia contested as the candidate for Congress-left alliance. But he later switched to TMC. The seat fell vacant when the party nominated Bhunia in Rajya Sabha.
The BJP candidate, Antara Bhattacharya, was earlier with CPI(M) and served as the sabhadhipati of West Midnapore Zilla Parishad from 2008 to 2013.
“The people of the area have immense support for Mamata Banerjee. There is no doubt that our candidate will win by a huge margin. It may be higher than mine,” said Manas Bhunia.