Sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of UP said on Friday that 49.43 per cent voting was recorded in Azamgarh and 41.39 per cent in Rampur in the Lok Sabha by-elections. Rampur, which fell vacant after the resignation of senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, recorded 63.19 per cent voter turnout in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Azamgarh, which was earlier represented by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, recorded a voter turnout of 57.56 per cent in the last Lok Sabha election.
Voting took place on Thursday in the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) bastion. “The polling percentage in Azamgarh was around 49.43 per cent while in Rampur it was around 41.39 per cent,” sources said. Over 35 lakh people were eligible to vote in these two constituencies to decide the fate of 19 candidates. Aajam Khan On Thursday it was alleged that the UP Police had “wrecked” what was said on the eve of Lok Sabha bypolls in Azamgarh and Rampur. He claimed that the policemen wielding lathi terrorized and humiliated the voters and stopped them from going to the polling booths on Thursday.
“I am a criminal, I admit… so my city is treated as such. They can do whatever they want with the city and its people, we have to endure. If I want to stay, I have to endure, Khan had said. Rampur Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Shukla on Thursday dismissed the allegations. “We have taken cognizance of the allegations leveled by him. I and District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Mander are inspecting every polling station. Entire No woman or any other voter in the constituency was stopped by the police. In a tweet in Hindi on Friday, Azam’s son Abdullah Azam, citing newspaper reports, said, “If Election If the commission does not take action even after these newspaper comments, then (one should) understand that democracy is on the verge of ending. These pictures and newspaper comments are telling everything clearly.”
The Samajwadi Party had also alleged irregularities in both the constituencies. In Rampur’s Tanda and Darial areas of Swar assembly seat, the police is harassing SP workers at the behest of the ruling party. The Election Commission should take cognizance. Action should be taken against the guilty policemen. Ensure fair voting,” the party said. It attached a letter written to the poll panel with this complaint. The party alleged that people were prevented from casting their vote at a booth in Tanda and polling was stopped. It also claimed that its agents were thrown out of several polling stations in Azamgarh “as part of a conspiracy at the behest of the BJP”.
According to the Election Commission, two general and two expenditure observers were appointed to oversee the elections. Also 291 Sector Magistrates, 40 Zonal Magistrates and 433 Micro Observers were in the field. The central force is in charge of securing the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and strongrooms. According to the Election Commission, 13 candidates are in the fray in Azamgarh, where 18.38 lakh people were eligible to vote. Six candidates are contesting from Rampur, which has 17.06 lakh registered voters. From Rampur, BJP has fielded Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi, who recently joined the party. Asim Raja, chosen by Azam Khan, is the SP candidate.
Mayawati-led BSP is not contesting from Rampur. Azamgarh seat is witnessing a triangular contest between Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirhua’ of BJP, Bhojpuri actor-singer Dharmendra Yadav of SP and Shah Alam of BSP, also known as Guddu Jamali. Out of 18.38 lakh voters in Azamgarh, 9,70,249 are males, 8,67,942 females and 36 are from third gender category. Officials said 2,176 booths have been set up at 1,149 polling stations in the constituency, where an estimated 15 per cent of the population is Muslim.
Azam Khan got 5,59,177 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. BJP candidate from Rampur Jaya Prada got 4,49,180 votes and Congress candidate Sanjay Kapoor lost his bail. The SP had won in the recent state elections in all the five assembly constituencies—Azamgarh, Mubarakpur, Sagdi, Gopalpur and Mehnagar—that fall under the Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Azamgarh, there was an alliance between SP and BSP, and Akhilesh Yadav Dinesh Lal Yadav of BJP, who got 3.61 lakh votes, won easily from ‘Nirhua’ by getting 6.21 lakh votes.
read all breaking news , today’s fresh news watch top videos And live TV Here.