New Delhi: As bypolls are underway for three seats, one Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats, in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan has alleged that police are telling people not to step out to vote. “Barbarism being done and people being arrested, beaten up. Police are going to colonies and telling people not to step out to vote,” Khan said, reported news agency ANI.
“People in one colony locked up their houses and migrated in fear. They are saying it everywhere to not cast votes,” he added.
The fight in today’s bypoll is directly between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance.
From Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat where byelections are taking place after the demise of sitting MP and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s death, the SP has fielded his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav. Contesting her from BJP is Raghuraj Singh Shakya, a former confidant of Mulayam's brother Shivpal Singh Yadav.
The bypolls in Rampur Sadar and Khatauli were necessitated after SP MLA Azam Khan and BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini were disqualified following their conviction in separate cases.
While Khan was disqualified after a court awarded him three-year imprisonment in a 2019 hate speech case, Saini lost his membership of the assembly after his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case.
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There are six candidates in the fray in Mainpuri, 14 candidates in Khatauli and 10 in Rampur Sadar, according to the Election Commission.
The BJP has fielded Akash Saxena, who is the son of former party MLA Shiv Bahadur Saxena, in Rampur Sadar against senior SP leader Azam Khan's protege Asim Raja.
In Khatauli, the fight is between Vikram Singh Saini's wife Rajkumari Saini and Madan Bhaiya from the RLD.