Stone pelting stalls polling

FOLLOWING HEAVY stone pelting for about an hour at the City Model School polling booth in ward number 57 under Kalyanpur police station, polling was suspended for more than two hours. The incident was fallout of alleged bogus voting.

FOLLOWING HEAVY stone pelting for about an hour at the City Model School polling booth in ward number 57 under Kalyanpur police station, polling was suspended for more than two hours. The incident was fallout of alleged bogus voting.

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Irate mob of about 100 people also vented their ire by setting on fire three motorcycles parked outside the school. Of the mobikes, two belonged to police personnel and one to a polling official.

The stone-pelters shattered all the windowpanes of the flat situated on the first floor of the school building. And, ‘missile’ bricks flew in through the broken panes forcing school proprietor SN Tewari and other residents to scurry for cover.

Suman Gupta of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Vibha Singh of the Samajwadi Party, Archana Awasthi of the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party-supported Vineeta Shukla among independents are in the fray for the corporator’s seat from this ward.

According to information, at around 10 in the morning, heated argument ensued between an election official and a voter from the nearby Kacchi Madayaia slum locality over the issue of bogus voting. Election officials and police personnel who were present at the booth allegedly thrashed the man. After about 10 minutes, he returned along with his 100 of his supporters. The mob resorted to heavy stone pelting at the booth forcing the voters waiting to cast their votes to take to their heels. Even, the sub-inspector of the area and the cops present in the booth ran to save their lives.

The stone pelting continued unabated for about an hour resulting in suspension of the polling process. It was only when a heavy police force along with nodal officer for the election SP Traffic Rakesh Singh and zonal magistrate (CDO) Ram Swaroop arrived that the situation could be controlled. Polling resumed around 12.10 pm. However, no extra time was allotted to make up for the two-hour suspension of polling process. Talking to Hindustan Times, SP Traffic Singh said, “The matter is being investigated and those responsible will be arrested.” He ruled out allotting any extra time to make up for the suspension of polling process. He said, “All the voters inside the polling both by 5 pm can cast their votes.”