E-Paper
UP bypolls: Counting of votes today, all eyes on high-stake Mainpuri
With the Congress and the BSP keeping away from the bypolls in UP, it would be a direct fight between the BJP and Samajwadi Party and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal
AGRA Three-tier security arrangements are in place for the counting of votes on Thursday for the bypoll in the high-profile Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, where the Samajwadi Party is locked in a battle of prestige against the BJP. The Central Para Military Force (CPMF) will guard the isolation cordon while the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) will take care of security in the inner ring and the police are managing the outer cordon at the counting venue in Mainpuri.
UP’s Rampur and Khatauli are the assembly seats where results will also be declared on Thursday. With the Congress and the BSP keeping away from the bypolls in UP, it would be a direct fight between the BJP and Samajwadi Party and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in all three places.
“The security at the venue is divided into three cordons – the isolation cordon, where entry will be totally restricted, will be taken care by the CPMF. PAC men will be stationed in the inner ring and the outer area will be manned by civil policemen,” stated SP (Mainpuri) Kamlesh Dixit.
“Besides, security personnel in plain clothes will be deployed. Vigil will be enhanced all over the district to avert any untoward incident,” added Dixit. Door framed metal detectors (DFMD) have been installed at the venue and entry will be through passes. The counting process will be monitored through CCTV cams, he added.
A high-stakes contest was witnessed in Mainpuri seat, where the by-election was necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in October. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s elder daughter-in-law and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav is the SP candidate in Mainpuri, a pocket borough of the Yadav family, while the BJP fielded Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidante of Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav had camped in Mainpuri while chief minister Yogi Adityanath held two public meetings in the district, making it more than a bypoll. SP workers were camping in Naveen Mandi to keep an eye on the strong room housing the EVMs brought here after casting of votes.
The by-election results will not have any impact on the central and state governments as the ruling party enjoys a comfortable majority.
“This is the first election after the death of Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) who won in the parliamentary election five times. He studied and taught here at the Jain Intermediate College in Karhal, an assembly constituency of Mainpuri, now represented by Akhilesh Yadav. The BJP is yet to win any Lok Sabha election here and thus would like to open its account in the bypoll. All this makes Thursday an important day as the outcome will certainly have an effect on the politics of UP,” suggested a political observer.
Azam Khan, who was the Rampur MLA, was disqualified by the Assembly Speaker after he was convicted and sentenced to three-year imprisonment in a case of hate speech registered against him in April 2019. Out on bail after being lodged in jail for more than two years in different cases, Khan, considered the ‘Muslim face’ of the SP, sought votes for his protege Asim Raja citing the alleged injustice meted out to him by the BJP government.
In Khatauli, which was a hotbed of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in western UP, the BJP is trying to retain the seat by fielding Rajkumari Saini, wife of Vikram Singh Saini, who was disqualified from the assembly after his conviction and sentence of two years imprisonment by a district court in a 2013 riots case. Inputs from agency
