The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on Saturday won seven out of nine Assembly bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh, even as the Samajwadi Party reiterated its allegations that voters were stopped from casting their ballots.
On Sunday morning, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged that voters from Kundarki who were travelling to Lucknow with complaints of electoral malpractices were stopped at the Sitapur city. He urged the president, Supreme Court, Election Commission and the human rights commission to take cognisance of the matter, and prevent “any injustice or atrocity” against voters.
The BJP on Saturday won the constituencies of Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Phulpur, Katehari and Majhawan, while its ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, won from Meerapur. The Samajwadi Party won the Sishamu and Karhal seats.
The BJP’s victory in Muslim-dominated Kundarki in the Moradabad district was among its more unexpected ones. The BJP’s Ramveer Singh won 76.71% (1,70,371) of the votes, while the Samajwadi Party’s Mohammed Rizwan could only win 11.52% (25,580) of the popular mandate.
The BJP had won from Kundarki only once earlier in 1993, which was also the last time that a Hindu candidate won from the seat. During the bye-election held on November 20, Ramveer Singh was the only Hindu candidate, the rest of them being Muslims.
Rizwan had emerged victorious from the seat in 2012 and 2017, and the Samajwadi Party’s Ziaur Rahman Barq had won in the 2022 Assembly election. Barq, however, was elected to the Lok Sabha in June this year, due to which the bye-election in Kundarki was held on November 20.
The constituency registered a voter turnout of 57.86%, amid allegations from the Samajwadi Party that many voters, particularly Muslims, were stopped from voting.
Kundarki was among four constituencies where the Samajwadi Party on November 21 demanded re-elections – the other three being Meerapur, Katehari and Sisamau. In Sisamau, the Samajwadi Party’s Naseem Solanki won against the BJP’s Suresh Awasthi by 8,564 votes.
In these four seats, the Samajwadi Party claimed on November 21 that voters, particularly Muslims, were prevented from casting their ballots at gunpoint, The Hindu reported. It demanded that fresh elections be held under the supervision of paramilitary forces.
The Samajwadi Party on November 20 released several videos of citizens in Kundarki alleging that they were being stopped from voting and were being threatened by the police with batons.
The BJP, on its part, had alleged that in Kundarki, persons were being given fake identity documents outside mosques and madrasas to enable them to vote. At three booths, the party had alleged that Samajwadi Party leaders were preventing voters from casting their ballots.
After the results were declared on Saturday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav remarked that the world had seen the “most distorted form” of electoral politics during the bye-elections.
“The tactics of those who made ‘elections’ synonymous with ‘corruption’ have been captured in photographs and exposed before the world,” Yadav said in a post on X.