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Set to break fresh ground in Rampur, Azamgarh: BJP
Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav accuses the ruling party of misusing power to press people to vote in its favour .
LUCKNOW: Political reactions were along expected lines after polling in Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha by-polls concluded at 6 pm on Thursday.
While the opposition Samajwadi Party claimed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party misused the official machinery to ‘terrorise voters’, the BJP leaders dismissed the SP allegations as ‘unfounded’ and proof that it was set to break fresh ground in these by-polls.
The results would be declared on June 26.
Uttar Pradesh minister Rakesh Sachan, a former Samajwadi Party leader who had switched loyalties and joined the BJP ahead of the 2022 U.P. polls, claimed that the BJP would win both Azamgarh and Rampur seats.
“We have worked hard in both these places,” Sachan said and added that chief minister Yogi Adityanath was very popular in Rampur. “That is why even minorities have voted for us,” said Sachan, even as SP leaders like Azam Khan said despite “excesses”, the ‘silent voters’ had played their part.
Another U.P. minister Narendra Kashyap claimed that having seen the ‘writing on the wall’, Azam had resorted to an ‘emotional card’. “See, people everywhere have trust in the BJP and its leadership. In Rampur especially, the people are backing the BJP,” he said.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, along with his ministers, had campaigned in both Rampur and Azamgarh. So did deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. The BJP had also assigned the responsibility of these by-polls to two of its senior-most ministers – finance minister Suresh Khanna and agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi.
The lower turnout, particularly in Rampur, confused many even as SP lawmaker and his party’s most visible Muslim face Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam, a lawmaker too, both accused the police of preventing voters from exercising their franchise.
Ahead of the polls, both chief minister Yogi Adityanath as well as leader of opposition and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had urged the cadre to ensure maximum voting.
State govt misused power: Akhilesh
Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav said that the BJP government in the state left no stone unturned in misusing power in the Lok Sabha by-polls in Azamgarh and Rampur on Thursday.
In a statement issued by his party, Akhilesh said the local administration created various hurdles to affect the voting and the local police harassed the SP workers and pressurised people to vote in favour of the ruling BJP. “Despite complaints to the Election Commission of India, the poll officials at several polling centres stayed mute spectators instead of acting. But in spite of all this, the voters cast their votes to defeat the BJP,” he said.
Akhilesh, who is also the leader of the opposition in the UP assembly, said: “The spirit of free and fair polls was compromised with to benefit the ruling party. The voters were not allowed to vote fearlessly. The BJP, in an organised manner, has been engaged in weakening the Constitutional institutions. Police and administration disrupted voting, polling centres were ‘seized’ and fake voting was organised for the ruling party. EVMs (electronic voting machines) were found out of order in several places”.
Akhilesh said that fearing defeat, the BJP misused power in the Suar assembly segment to prevent voters from exercising their franchise. He said that women voters of minority community were prevented from voting while the police created fear by lathicharge at Narpat Nagar polling centre in Rampur.
Akhilesh reiterated that the SP candidates in both Rampur and Azamgarh would win as the people had decided to teach the ruling party a lesson.
