E-Paper
Milkipur bypoll: Stage set for battle of prestige
The voters will vote at 414 polling booths in the constituency out of which 71 booths have been declared critical. Polling will take place on Feb 5
The stage is set for battle of prestige between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) as voting will take place for Ayodhya’s Milkipur assembly bypoll on Wednesday.
The results will decide if riding on the Hindutva plank, the BJP will wrest the seat from the SP or confident of its PDA formula, Akhilesh Yadav-led party will retain its hold in the area that has been the nerve centre of the Ram temple movement.
The 3,71,578 voters, including 1,93,417 male and 1,78,153 female and 5 third gender, will decide the fate of 10 candidates in the fray. The main contest is between Ajeet Prasad of the SP and Chandrabhan Paswan of the BJP. The counting of the votes will take place on February 8.
Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said, “The Election Commission of India (ECI) has completed its preparations for peaceful and fair polling in Milkipur on Wednesday.”
The voting will commence at 7am and will continue till 5pm. The voters will vote at 414 polling booths in the constituency out of which 71 booths have been declared critical.
Adequate paramilitary forces have been deployed there to conduct the elections peacefully. The responsibility of security of the strong room has also been given to the paramilitary forces.
“Live webcasting has been arranged at 210 polling stations, which will be supervised by the district election officer, the chief electoral officer and the ECI. The ECI has also made arrangement for videography at 25 polling booths,” he said.
To maintain vigil on voting, the ECI has also deployed one general observer, one police observer and one expenditure observer. Forty-one sector magistrates, 4 zonal magistrates and 71 micro observers have also been deployed. Complaints regarding polling can be lodged on phone number 18001801950.
The CEO said the exit poll has been banned till 6.30 pm on Wednesday. The ECI has restrained electronic channels and digital media from asking the voters about the party or the candidate they have voted in the bypoll.
