UP Assembly Bypolls: Suar records over 44.95% polling, Chhanbey 44.15%

Mirzapur District Magistrate Divya Mittal said that the polling was completed peacefully and no unwanted incident was reported.

A total of 774 polling booths were set up by the Election Commission at 492 polling centres in the two constituencies for 6.62 lakh eligible voters. The counting of votes will take place on May 13.

In a tweet on its official Twitter handle, the SP alleged, “In Khempur, Rasoolpur, Faridpur, Samodia in the Suar seat of Rampur, police are preventing voters from voting. Voters are returned from polling booths. Election Commission should take cognisance and ensure fair elections.” In a separate tweet, it alleged that Cabinet minister Ashish Patel (of Apna Dal-S) was calling SP workers and threatening them to affect polls.

In a statement issued here, the SP said that following the instructions of party president Akhilesh Yadav, a letter has been sent to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) in New Delhi, urging him to take cognisance of the complaints of “rigging and intimidation of voters and booth capturing by the ruling party in the by-elections in two Assembly constituencies and take immediate action”.

Arvind Kumar Singh, SP’s former member of the Rajya Sabha and outgoing member of the Legislative Council has sent all the complaints related to the by-elections to the CEC, expecting immediate action on them, the statement added.

Officials, however, denied any discrepancies, saying free and fair polls were conducted in the state.

As the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) stayed away from the bypolls focusing on the urban local body elections, the bypolls on both seats witnessed a close contest between BJP’s ally Apna Dal(S) and the SP. Though the Congress had fielded a candidate in Chhanbey, it did not contest in Suar.  A total of 14 candidates are in the fray— six in Suar and eight in Chhanbey. The BJP too stayed away from the contest and gave both seats to ally Apna Dal (S). Both parties gave a lot of importance to the Suar bypoll as they wanted to send out a message that SP leader Azam Khan’s citadel was conquered. The Suar seat was held by Abdullah Azam Khan, the son of senior SP leader Azam Khan, and it was declared vacant on February 13 after a Moradabad court sentenced him to two years in jail in a 15-year-old case.

Azam lost the Rampur Assembly seat to BJP’s Akash Saxena in a bypoll in December last year when a similar decline in the voters’ turnout was recorded. Only 33.83 per cent votes were polled — 22.78 per cent less than the 2022 Assembly elections which had recorded a turnout of 56.61 per cent.

Though the SP generally relied on Azam and his family to win Suar, which Abdullah won twice in 2017 and 2022, it fielded Anuradha Chauhan, a lawyer, in the current bypoll. With the support of Azam, Chauhan gave a tough fight to her rival Shafiq Ahmed Ansari of Apna Dal(Sonelal).

Ansari, who belongs to the Pasmanda Muslim community, was with the SP before joining the Apna Dal(S) led by Union Minister Anupriya Patel.

In the 2022 elections, Abdullah won the seat by 61,103 votes, defeating Apna Dal’s candidate and erstwhile nawab Haidar Ali Khan, alias, Hamza Mian.

In the SC-reserved Chhanbey constituency, the bypoll was necessitated after the death of sitting Apna Dal (S) MLA Rahul Prakash Kol. The party fielded his wife Rinki Kol, hoping to retain the seat on sympathy voting. Here the fight was between the Apna Dal (S) and the SP. The SP, on the other hand, has once again put its trust in Kirti Kol, who had unsuccessfully contested the seat against Rahul Prakash Kol in 2022, losing by a margin of over 32,000 votes. — With PTI  Inputs