On the eve of bypolls in nine Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday hurled accusations against each other, claiming that the other was using tactics to disrupt voting.
The SP accused the State government of pressurising voters, and urged the Election Commission and Supreme Court to take action.
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“The Election Commission should take immediate cognizance of the fact that the government and administration in U.P. is adopting a biased attitude and pressurising voters by distributing red cards of ‘notice-warning’ to disrupt the voting,” alleged Akhilesh Yadav in a post on X, where he also shared pictures showing SP supporters getting such warning notices. “This is an illegal act of snatching the right to vote given by the Constitution. It should be registered as a crime and immediate action should be taken. Otherwise it will be an appeal to the Honorable Supreme Court to take suo motu cognizance and direct the biased government and administration to conduct fair elections,” he said.
The SP also accused the State police of tampering with cameras and DVRs at the Jubilee Inter College polling station in Chamanganj, in the Sisamau Assembly constituency in Kanpur district, asking the ECI to take cognizance and ensure fair voting there. The SP also urged the ECI to make sure that burqa-wearing Muslim women would not be checked by the police stationed at the polling booths, but by returning officers, the polling officials designated by the Commission.
Checks on burqa-wearers
The BJP hit back, accusing the SP of conspiring to permit fake voting by making people wear burqas. “There is no place for fake voting and booth capturing in democracy. The SP’s old habits of booth capturing and fake voting will not succeed this time. There is an appeal to the Election Commission to ensure fair and transparent voting. Strict action should be taken against the SP’s conspiracy to get fake voting done by making people wear burqa. For fair elections, it is necessary to ensure special checking of voters who vote wearing burqa,” said U.P. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
Bypolls will be held on November 20 in nine Assembly seats: Sisamau in Kanpur district, Katehri in Ambedkar Nagar, Kundarki in Moradabad, Ghaziabad in Ghaziabad, Majhwan in Mirzapur, Karhal in Mainpuri district, Khair in Aligarh, Phulpur in Prayagrah, and Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar.
The BJP expressed confidence of victory in all the seats. “We are winning all the nine seats. The SP is peddling false accusations. All sections of society, be it Dalits, [other backward classes] OBCs, upper castes, and other sections, are solidly behind the BJP. The SP slogan of PDA [or Pidchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak] is a farce, Akhilesh Yadav and his leaders are worried for their families, while [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi Ji and [Chief Minister] Yogi Ji is worried for the common people,” said Dinesh Dubey, a senior BJP leader.
Published - November 19, 2024 10:52 pm IST
