Lucknow: A voter turnout of 53 per cent was recorded in the final phase of the urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, according to official figures, as the Samajwadi Party accused BJP supporters of indulging in malpractices, especially in Kannauj.
The polling began at 7 am in Meerut, Ghaziabad, Shahjahanpur, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kanpur, and Ayodhya districts.
According to a press statement issued by the state election commission, polling was held peacefully with 57 per cent in Gautam Buddh Nagar, 53.76 per cent in Etawah, 52.6 per cent turnout in Ayodhya, 50.49 per cent in Bareilly, 50.48 per cent in Aligarh, 45.52 per cent in Ghaziabad, and 42. 64 per cent in Kanpur till 5 pm.
Overall, the voting percentage in this phase is 53, said the statement.
The voting percentage in the first phase of urban body polls conducted on May 4 was 52.
Polling will be held again in three wards in a Municipal committee in Bilhaur of Kanpur as some miscreants allegedly filled water in ballot boxes at these centres, according to the statement.
Officials also said that voters who lined up at the polling centres beofre 6.00 pm, were allowed to cast their votes.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) though a series of tweets accused members of the ruling party of indulging in fake voting in the Gursahaiganj polling booth of Kannauj.
The party alleged that BJP MP Subrat Pathak and his supporters misbehaved with SP workers and voters at another booth in Kannauj, and appealed to the State Election Commission to take notice of it.
It also claimed that the husband of an independent nominee in Kanpur’s Ghatampur was shot at and that Dalits and OBCs were being not allowed to vote.
There have been reports of six fake voters being caught at a polling booth in Mau district.
Bulandshahr District Magistrate Chandra Prakash Singh said that some people had made fake Aadhaar cards, and also fake identity cards of government employees. “We have detained 100 such people from different urban local bodies,” he said.
Use of fake Aadhaar cards by voters was also reported from other districts as well. In Badaun, independent candidate Avneesh Yadav accused a BJP candidate of distributing fake Aadhaar cards to voters. Badaun District Magistrate Manoj Kumar said such reports were received from Dataganj area of the district. “Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Dataganj, Dharmendra Singh has been asked to look into the matter of use of fake Aadhaar cards,” he said.
In Shahjahanpur, police arrested three men for allegedly printing fake Aadhaar cards. Superintendent of Police S Anand said, “We have arrested Mobeen Akhtar, Ahsan and Zafar for printing fake Aadhaar cards. The matter is being investigated.” In Ayodhya, the chief priest of the Ram temple, Acharya Satyendra Das and Mahant of Hanumangarhi temple Raju Das also cast their votes.
Repolling was held in a polling booth in Chakia in Chandauli district following some anomalies in the ballot paper, an official of the State Election Commission said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath tweeted, “Today is the last phase of polling for the Uttar Pradesh Municipal elections 2023. All respected voters are appealed to participate in this festival of democracy to form a triple-engine government. Do vote. Your valuable vote will make your municipal corporation more empowered.” Triple-engine is a term being used by BJP leaders to refer to the party ruling at the Centre, state and local levels.
Prominent among the early voters were state Finance Minister Suresh Khanna, who exercised his franchise at a school located at Diwan Jograj, Cooperatives Minister J P S Rathore and PWD Minister Jitin Prasad at Sudama Prasad Vidyalaya in Shahjahanpur.
Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana cast his vote in Kanpur and Minister of State (independent charge) for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Arun Kumar in Bareilly.
Union minister General V K Singh (retd) cast his vote in Ghaziabad, and in a tweet in Hindi said voting was absolutely necessary to elect a development-oriented public representative.
Union minister and Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel, who cast her vote in Mirzapur, said efforts were on to ensure progress of the district. Apna Dal is an alliance partner of the ruling BJP.
The municipal elections gain significance as political parties are trying to showcase their electoral strength in Uttar Pradesh before the 2024 general elections. The state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
Shahjahanpur is voting to elect its first mayor. Meerut and Aligarh had BSP mayors in 2017, while the BJP ruled the rest.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded Hasmat Malik from Meerut. The BSP candidate had won the mayoral elections in 1995, 2000 and then in 2017.
In Aligarh, the party has fielded Salman Sahid as its candidate.
Traditionally, Aligarh has been a bastion of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has never lost this seat since the system of direct voting was introduced for the mayoral post in 1995. However, in 2017, the BSP’s Mohammad Furqan won the mayoral contest.
This time, Aligarh is witnessing a triangular contest among the ruling BJP, principal opposition Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Adityanath as well as SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had campaigned for their party candidates in Aligarh.
According to the State Election Commission (SEC), over 1.92 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes in the second phase. The first phase of voting was held on May 4. The counting of votes for both phases will take place on May 13.
As many as 39,146 candidates are in the fray in the second round for 6,929 posts, which includes seven mayors and 581 corporators. Apart from this, voting is also being held to elect 95 chairpersons and 2,520 members of nagar palika parishads, and 267 chairpersons and 3,459 members of various nagar panchayats.
The SEC said 77 representatives, including nine corporators, have been elected unopposed in this phase.
Meanwhile, Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said for a peaceful conduct of the polls, one lakh civil police personnel, 76 companies and two platoons of the PAC, 35 companies of CAPF and 7,935 under-training sub-inspectors were deployed.
—PTI