LS, Assembly bypolls peaceful, turnout not high

The results of the three Lok Sabha and five Assembly seats, byelections for which were held on Saturday...

The results of the three Lok Sabha and five Assembly seats, byelections for which were held on Saturday, will reflect the national mood in an election year. The by-polls in four states, that witnessed low to moderate polling, were largely peaceful.

In Uttar Pradesh, the two Lok Sabha seats of Khalilabad and Azamgarh saw a voter turnout of 33 per cent and 41 per cent respectively. Samajwadi Party’s Balram Singh Yadav is pitted against ex-MP Akbar Ahmed Dumpy of the BSP in Azamgarh. The BJP’s Ramakant Yadav, a notorious mafia don, too, is likely to get sizeable Yadav votes. The other seat is witnessing a direct SP-BSP contest.

For the Assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, 54 per cent turnout was reported in Bilgram, 44 per cent in Colonelganj and 53 per cent in Moradnagar. Bypolls were also held for Assembly constituencies of Kharba in West Bengal and Naxal-infested Laxmipur in Orissa.

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The Betul-Harda Lok Sabha byelection in Madhya Pradesh witnessed a 57 per cent voter turnout. The Congress has fielded Sukhdev Panse to take on the BJP’s Hemant Khandelwal. His father Vijay Khandelwal earlier represented the seat and his death necessitated the byelection. The Samajwadi Party is also in the fray with firebrand MLA Suneelam as its candidate.

In a related development, the Election Commission has asked poll observers to look at possibilities of liquor flow from Goa during the three-phased Karnataka elections. Observing that the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) coverage in Karnataka stood at 57.72 per cent, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said the EPIC coverage in urban areas like Bangalore municipal, urban and rural and Mysore corporation area was very low. Nearly 1,000 mobile EPIC centres had been pressed into service to increase the coverage, he said.