Journalism of Courage
In focus
The Rajinder Nagar Assembly constituency recorded a voter turnout of 43.75% in the bypoll Thursday, as per data made available by the Delhi Chief Electoral Office (CEO). In 2020, the voter turnout for the constituency was 58.72%.
Voting was held from 7 am to 6 pm, and Covid patients were allowed to vote in the last hour after they wore full PPE kits. The seat fell vacant after AAP’s Raghav Chadha was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
Voting trends through the day signalled that the voter turnout would be low. In the first four hours, for example, the voter turnout was only 14.85%. “The voter turnout is low. We have tried out best through our voter awareness programme to encourage people to vote. We are hoping that it will pick up as we go and maybe in the afternoon more people will come,” Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh had said in the afternoon, and expressed hope that 2020’s voter turnout figure would be crossed.
During the election, a total of 188 challans were issued by traffic police for misuse of vehicles like bearing unauthorised posters, banners, and displaying other poll material, Singh said. Out of these, 123 were against the AAP, 49 against the BJP, and 16 against others.
He also said a total of 24 FIRs were registered for violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) of which 13 were against AAP, nine were against BJP, one against Congress and one against others.
On seizures, Singh said, 280 licenced arms were seized, while under the Arms Act, five FIRs were lodged, five illegal arms seized and five people arrested. Under the Excise Act, 1,850 litres of illegally possessed liquor worth Rs 5.65 lakh was seized, and 36 FIRs lodged and 36 arrests made.
Under the narcotics department, drugs worth over Rs 10 crore were seized by authorities and the Income Tax department had seized cash worth Rs 1 crore in Delhi, although outside the Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency.
“Under the GST department, various items worth Rs 43 lakh have been seized, and 40 non-bailable warrants were received, all 40 have been executed,” said Singh.
A total of 1,64,698 voters were eligible to exercise their vote in the bypoll, with AAP’s Durgesh Pathak, BJP’s Rajesh Bhatia and Congress’ Prem Lata as the main candidates in the fray. Water shortage, the state of roads, electricity and the liquor policy were among the key election issues.
There were a total of 190 polling stations, including 13 auxiliary ones, which were set up at 21 locations, equipped with all facilities such as drinking water, ramps, sign language, braille, creches for mothers if they come to vote with their children etc. A total of 24 Covid patients voted in the elections out of the approximately 80 who were identified by the district administration.
Results for the bypoll will be declared on June 26.
