State BSP president Swami Prasad Maurya has heated exchange with a PAC jawan on an otherwise incident free polling day The trend of increa
se in voter turnout continued in the second phase of polling during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on Saturday. The voter turnout is expected to be over 60 per cent where 59 assembly seats spread in nine districts of eastern UP went to polls. The hike in voter turnout was over 14 per cent more than the 46 per cent turnout during the second phase of polling in the 2007 Assembly elections. There had been a significant increase of 18 per cent in voter turnout compared to 2007 during the first phase of polling on 8 February as well.
“Approximately 57 per cent polling was recorded in 59 seats of nine districts and it is expected to go up to 59 per cent. The polling was completely incident free and absolutely peaceful. By 3 pm around 50 per cent polling was recorded in almost all the 59 seats in nine districts,” said Umesh Sinha, the chief electoral officer of UP. “The polling continued till 8 pm in many districts against the normal polling hours of 7 am to 5 pm,” he added.
In Kushinagar district, however, cabinet minister and state BSP President Swami Prasad Maurya had a heated exchange with a PAC jawan who prevented him from entering a polling booth. Maurya, who is seeking re-election from Padrauna assembly seat in the district, was asked by the PAC jawan to leave the premises of the polling booth, to which the minister strongly objected saying he was a candidate who has a high status. The PAC jawan, however, made it clear that it was well within his legal rights to prevent the entry of any unauthorised person inside the polling booth.
There were reports of voters boycotting polls at Bheeta in Ballia district and Hathiya in Azamgarh districts, besides minor complaints related to problems with electronic voting machines (EVMs). There were also reports of minor incidents in Mau and Azamgarh district where the police had to use mild force to disperse crowds.
The voters have sealed the fate of 1,098 candidates after Saturday’s polling, held in Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Azamgarh, Mau, Ballia and Ghazipur.
The stakes are high for the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the second phase as it had won 32 seats in the 2007 Assembly elections followed by the Samajwadi Party (SP) with 20 seats while the BJP had won only seven and the Congress could win only two seats.
There are many high profile candidates whose fates have been locked in the ballot boxes after Saturday’s polling. The state president of the BJP Surya Pratap Shahi, also a chief ministerial candidate, is in the fray from Patthardeva assembly seat in Deoria district; Ramapati Tripathi, also a former BJP state president, is in the fray from Siswa Bazaar seat in Maharajganj district; Dr Ayub Ansari, head of the Muslim-dominated political outfit Peace Party, is also seeking election from the Khalilabad seat in Sant Kabir Nagar district. Some other senior leaders whose destinies have been determined include Speaker of the state assembly Sukhdeo Rajbhar, revenue minister Phagu Chauhan, state president of BSP Swami Prasad Maurya, deputy leader of SP Ambika Chaudhary. As many as 31 sitting MLAs and 24 former ministers and the mafia dons Mukhtar Ansari and Brijesh Singh, who are both in jail, have also contested the elections.
Meanwhile, Hindutva leader Yogi Aditya Nath, BJP MP from Gorakhpur, caused huge embarrassment to his party by claiming that it will be a hung assembly as no party will get a clear majority and that the state will witness mid-term polls within the next one year. “Be it BJP, SP, BSP or the Congress, no party will get clear majority on the floor of the House and the BJP should not commit the folly of supporting any other party in forming the government,” he said in Gorakhpur, adding, “I would suggest both the national parties--the Congress and the BJP--not to extend support to any regional party – the SP or the BSP – and wait for the mid-term polls to the state assembly, which will take place within next one year.”
Yogi argued that “if the national parties extend support to any of the regional parties it will create a potential crisis of existence for them”. He had earlier also opposed the entry of the NRHM scam-tainted BSP leader Babu Singh Kushwaha into the party and had announced that he will not campaign for the party. The BJP had in 1993, 1996 and 2003 had extended support and formed coalition government with the BSP.
The state BJP president Surya Pratap Shahi, who has a running feud with the Yogi Aditya Nath ever since he took over as the state chief of the party in May 2010 rejected his claims. “BJP has nothing to do with the ideas of Yogi Aditya Nath; what he said are his personal views. As far as I can understand the political situation of UP, the BJP will get a clear majority or will be at striking distance from the magic number of 202 in the state assembly,” he said.
