Milkipur assembly bypoll: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav alleged “fake voting” and rigging by officials, but senior police officers rejected the charge and said voting is going on peacefully at all polling stations.
More than 65 per cent of the total 3.70 lakh voters exercised their franchise till 5 pm in the bypoll to the Milkipur Assembly constituency of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. The voting began at 7 am and continued till 5 pm, officials said, adding those who queued up outside poll booths before that will be allowed to vote. According to the Election Commission (EC), 65.25 per cent votes were cast till 5 pm, and the final poll percentage can go up with people still queued up outside booths after 5 pm.
A total of 10 candidates are in the fray but the main contest is expected to be between Samajwadi Party’s Ajit Prasad and the BJP’s Chandrabhanu Paswan. While BSP isn’t contesting the bypoll, the Congress is backing its alliance partner SP on the seat. Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) has also fielded a candidate from the seat.
There are 255 polling centres and 414 polling stations for the election. Regarding security in the bypoll, the officials said, “Webcasting will be conducted at 210 polling stations and videography at 25 stations. Micro-observers are deployed at 71 polling centres, with nine flying squads, nine static surveillance teams, six video surveillance teams, two super zonal magistrates, four zonal magistrates and 41 sector magistrates. Voting will be conducted with the assistance of civil police, PAC, and paramilitary forces.”
The seat is reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and has an elector base of 3,70,829. More than 1.93 lakh male voters, and over 1.78 lakh female voters and eight third-gender people are registered to vote for the bypoll. There are 4,811 first-time voters in the assembly constituency.
The stakes in the bypoll in Milkipur were raised by SP’s Awadhesh Prasad’s surprise win from Faizabad in last year’s Lok Sabha polls that came just months after the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He represented the assembly seat until he won the Lok Sabha poll, which necessitated the bypoll at the seat.
The result for the assembly seat will be declared on February 8 after the vote counting on the same day.
(With PTI Inputs)
