E-Paper
Bypolls to one Lok Sabha, four assembly seats in 4 states held
Voting was held in Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge assembly segment in West Bengal, Khairagarh assembly seat in Chhattisgarh, Bochahan assembly seat in Bihar and Kolhapur North assembly segment in Maharashtra.
Polling for by-elections to four assembly seats and one Lok Sabha segment across West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Maharashtra passed off peacefully on Tuesday with stray incidents of violence in Bengal, election commission officials said.
Voting was held in Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge assembly segment in West Bengal, Khairagarh assembly seat in Chhattisgarh, Bochahan assembly seat in Bihar and Kolhapur North assembly segment in Maharashtra.
A low voter turnout marked polling in Bengal. While Asansol recorded a turnout of 64.03%, Ballygunge assembly constituency saw an even lower turnout of 41% till 5 pm, an official said. The figures are likely to go up as polling went on for another one-and-a-half hour, the official added.
The by-elections in Asansol were necessitated as Babul Supriyo resigned as MP after switching over from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) last year.
BJP’s Lok Sabha bypoll candidate Agnimitra Paul alleged that TMC workers thrashed her security personnel and pelted stones at her convoy during the day. “TMC goons attacked my car and my security personnel was injured. The media movement was stopped as they were capturing the wrongdoings of the TMC,” Paul, who has been pitted against TMC’s Shatrughan Sinha, said.
The TMC alleged that Paul and her security personnel tried to create disturbance in the area. “How can a candidate move with a convoy of 20 cars? She and her security personnel were trying to create tension in the area,” TMC leader V Sivadasan said.
Police also claimed that Paul was moving around with a convoy of vehicles.
State minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year, TMC’s Supriyo has been pitted against BJP’s Keya Ghosh and CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim from this seat. The Congress is also in the fray in both the seats.
In Chattisgarh’s Khairagarh assembly constituency, a voter turnout of 78% was recorded till 5 pm, another official said, adding that the figure was likely to increase as voting continued in some places. The segment falls under the Maoist-affected Rajnandgaon district.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) legislator and former MP Devvrat Singh last November.
This time, the BJP has once again fielded Komal Janghel, a former MLA, for the bypoll, while Yashoda Verma, the Khairagarh block unit chief of Congress, is the ruling party’s nominee. Janghel and Verma both belong to the Lodhi caste, a numerically powerful OBC community in the Khairagarh area.
Polling in Bihar’s Bochahan assembly constituency was peaceful with over 59 per cent of eligible electors casting their votes, a state election commission official said.
Bypoll to the seat was necessitated by the death of MLA Musafir Paswan, who had won on the ticket of Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Bollywood set designer-turned-politician Mukesh Sahani.
Musafir’s son, Amar, is in the fray as the candidate for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and has been pitted against BJP’s Baby Kumari and VIP’s Geeta Kumari.
The Kolhapur north segment in Maharashtra recorded a turnout of 60.09%. The election became necessary after incumbent Congress MLA Chandrakant Jadhav died due to Covid-19 in December 2021.
Congress’s Jayashri Jadhav has been pitted against BJP’s Satyajit (Nana) Kadam from the seat.
The counting of votes across the four states will be held on April 16.
(With agency inputs)
