Amid row, saffron party keeps hold of Sikandra assembly seat

KANPUR: The BJP won the Sikandra assembly bypoll on Sunday, retaining the seat by a margin of 11, 861 votes even as the Samajwadi Party and Congress candidates alleged the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were tampered, a charge denied by the administration.

The constituency falls under the Kanpur Dehat district. The bypoll was held on December 21 for the seat which fell vacant after the death of BJP member Mathura Prasad Pal on July 22. The BJP had won it in the assembly election in March by 38,103 votes. This time, the party fielded Mathura Prasad Pal’s son, Ajit Pal Singh. He secured 73,284 votes, according to the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer’s office.

SP’s Seema Sachan gave the BJP an initial scare but finished in second position with 61,423 votes. Congress’s Prabhakar Pandey got 19,084 votes while the BSP did not field its candidate.

All 10 candidates, except the BJP nominee, boycotted the counting for nearly an hour. The SP and Congress candidates stopped the observer’s vehicle outside the counting centre. Sachan and Pandey said the seals on some EVMs were broken and when their agents pointed it out, they were asked to leave.

Kanpur Dehat DM Rakesh Kumar Singh reached the spot and got the counting stopped in the 17th round. At this stage, the SP claimed it was leading by nearly 4,000 votes. Later, the BJP candidate was declared winner.

Sachan’s husband and former MP, Rakesh, and supporters staged a sit-in, demanding a recount and matching the voter verified paper audit trail slips. “We will not leave unless our demand is met. They stopped counting to manipulate and make the BJP candidate win,” he said.