If there's one issue that the Congress and the BJP totally agree on, it is the ‘‘largescale rigging and intimidation’’ of voters in Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-elections in Uttar Pradesh. The Election Commission has stopped counting of votes in the constituency following complaints from both the parties.The bypolls to Mainpuri was necessisated after UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav vacated the seat. On polling day, the EC not only recieved reports of poll-related violence from here, which claimed two lives, but also of largescale rigging. The Commission has decided to send a four-member team to Mainpuri tomorrow to look into the complaints, sources said.While Congress spokesperson Abhisek Manu Singhvi said the EC sould take ‘‘immediate and strong action’’ in Mainpuri, the BJP today approached the Commission and demanded countermanding of polls. The official machinery had ‘‘openly supported’’ the ruling SP, BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
