Ratlam bypoll: Before day of decision, Congress candidate Kantilal Bhuria plays nightwatchman

Over 62 per cent voters in Ratlam exercised their franchise on Saturday. Counting of votes will take place on Tuesday.

Kantilal Bhuria outside the strong room at Government Polytechnic in Jhabua, where EVMs have been kept. (Express Photo)

Congress candidate Kantilal Bhuria spent Sunday night outside the strongroom in Jhabua where EVMs for the Lok Sabha byelection to Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, have been kept. He was doing so to prevent possible manipulation of the EVMs, said Bhuria, a former Union Minister.

Votes for the prestigious byelection will be counted Tuesday, along with those for Warangal Lok Sabha seat in Telangana and five assembly seats in four states. More than 62 per cent of 17 lakh voters turned out in Ratlam Saturday, with both major parties interpreting the slightly lower turnout than 2014 as a sign that things were in their favour.

“The BJP has spent crores on campaigning and yet they tried to tamper with EVMs after polling ended. We succeeded in stopping them but we don’t want to take any chances,” Bhuria told The Indian Express Monday.

[related-post]

The Congress said some bureaucrats have refused to tamper with the machines but alleged there were others willing to do so to ensure victory for the BJP. Congress workers kept a nightlong vigil on strongrooms in the district headquarters of Ratlam, Jhabua and Alirajpur and continued to do so Monday night. Bhuria said he spent six hours at the Government Polytechnic building, Jhabua, taking turns with colleagues at keeping vigil.

The byelection was necessitated by the death of BJP MP Dileep Singh Bhuria on June 24. The BJP has fielded his daughter Nirmala, the MLA from Petlawad, to take on Kantilal Bhuria, a former state Congress chief. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan addressed several rallies in Jhabua, Ratlam and Alirajpur districts from which the Ratlam (ST) seat has been carved.

The vigil at strongrooms follows a series of complaints lodged by the Congress with the Election Commission accusing the Chouhan government of “malpractices”. Before polling day, the Congress had accused the BJP of distributing sarees, a complaint the EC later rejected as incorrect.

The BJP, for its part, has accused the Congress of conceding defeat much before the day of counting.

Story continues below this ad

At 62.29 per cent, the voter turnout was nearly two percentage points less than that in the 2014 general elections, in which the BJP swept 27 out of the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh. In doing so, the BJP won Ratlam (ST) for the first ever. In the November 2013 assembly elections, the BJP had won seven of eight seats that make up the Lok Sabha constituency. However, in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s lead in a few segments decreased considerably.