Bypoll conducted smoothly in Pithoragarh, one village boycotts voting

With around 47% polling till 5pm on Monday, voting for by-election for the Pithoragarh assembly seat in Uttarakhand was conducted smoothly barring a boycott by people in one polling booth, said the district election officer.

With over 1.05 lakh voters, polling was conducted across 145 polling stations. The results for bypoll will be declared on November 28.

VK Jogdande, district election officer and district magistrate of Pithoragarh said, “Voting was conducted peacefully across the assembly seat without any case of violence. We did get reports of voters boycotting the election in one polling booth; however, it was not a complete boycott as some voters exercised their franchise.” The official informed that polling was over at 90% of the booths till the filing of this copy.

Around 461 voters of Deodar village boycotted the poll demanding a link road to their village.

“Not even single voter turned up till 1:30pm. We tried to make them understand the value of democratic elections and of their votes, but the villagers did not vote,” said Vidhya Sagar Kapri, assistant returning officer.

The assembly seat fell vacant after the demise of former state finance minister Prakash Pant in June this year.

For the election, BJP fielded his wife Chandra Pant as its candidate while Congress fielded Anju Lunthi.

Both the parties had their heavyweights in their respective campaigns for the bypoll. While BJP had its senior leaders like state general secretary (organisation) Rajendra Bhandari, MP from Almora Ajay Tamta and cabinet minister Rekha Arya for campaigning, Congress had its state unit head Pritam Singh, former CM Harish Rawat and leader of opposition Indira Hridayesh.

Leaving no stone unturned for the Pithorgarh bypoll, the ruling BJP also implemented corporate style management skills along with over 2,500 party workers on ground.