Low turnout in Rampur byelection

BJP and SP accuse each other of stopping people from voting

New Delhi/Lucknow, Dec. 5: Moderate to high turnout was recorded on Monday in by-elections to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat and five Assembly seats in as many states, while only around 34 per cent of electors cast their votes in Rampur assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Mainpuri parliamentary constituency in UP, which fell vacant after the death of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, registered 54.37 turnout while Khatauli Assembly segment in Muzaffarnagar recorded 56.46 polling, district officials said.

Main rivals BJP and SP in Uttar Pradesh accused each other of rigging and complained to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ajay Kumar Shukla.

The turnout was 76 per cent in Padampur in Odisha, nearly 70 per cent in Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, 64.86 per cent in Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh and around 58 per cent in Kurhani in Bihar and, with no major untoward incident reported. While two Assembly seats were held by the Congress, one each was with the BJP, BJD, RJD and SP.

The bypolls in Rampur Sadar and Khatauli were necessitated after SP MLA Azam Khan and BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini were disqualified following their conviction in separate cases.

At a press conference in Saifai, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP government of misusing the official machinery. He alleged that the Rampur administration and the police were not allowing people to come out and vote. A BJP delegation led by the party's State General Secretary J P S Rathore complained to the Chief Electoral Officer against the Samajwadi Party.

Following its defeat in Azamgarh and the Rampur Lok Sabha byelection, considered key Samajwadi party bastions, the latest by-elections are crucial for the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.

In Mainpuri, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav is pitted against BJP’s Raghuraj Singh Shakya, once a close associate of Shivpal Singh Yadav. It had recorded a turnout of 56.61 per cent in the 2019 polls.