Repoll passes off peacefully in 123 booths

New Delhi: Amid tight security arrangements, repolling was held at 122 polling booths in the Kairana and Gondia-Bhandara constituencies of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively and one booth in Nagaland’s lone Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday. The repolling was ordered by the Election Commission after technical snags in the EVM-VVPAT machines during the byelections held on Monday were reported from these booths. The entire exercise is learnt to have passed off largely peacefully.

While 73 booths under Kairana Lok Sabha seat underwent repolling, votes were cast again in 49 polling booths in Maharashtra’s Gondia-Bhandara constituency. One booth in Nagaland’s Aongleden also saw repolling.

The results of all the byelections, which were held in four Lok Sabha seats (including Palghar in Maharashtra and one in Nagaland) and 10 Assembly seats across several states, like Jharkhand, West Bengal and Kerala on May 28, will be declared on Thursday, May 31.

On Wednesday, the Election Commission also announced the biennial polls to three Rajya Sabha seats from Kerala, including the one held by Upper House deputy chairman P.J. Kurien, that are falling vacant on July 1. The election will be held on June 21, for which the notification will be issued on June 4, the poll panel said.

In Kairana, meanwhile, around 80,000 voters were registered in the booths where the repolling was held. The Opposition Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal as well as the ruling BJP had raised claims of the tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs) at these booths.

The repolling began at 7 am and continued till 5 pm in 23 polling stations at Nakur, 44 in Gangoh and one station at Thana Bhawan in Saharanpur and five in Shamli. The repolling in Kairana saw 61 per cent voter turnout on Wednesday.

On Monday, 54 per cent polling was recorded in Kairana seat, which had fallen vacant following the death of BJP MP Hukum Singh, whose daughter Mriganka Singh is the party’s candidate in the bypoll.

Mriganka Singh is fighting the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Tabassum Hasan, who is also backed by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

The Kairana byelections are being seen as a testing ground for the unity of the Opposition parties against the BJP.

In Gondia-Bhandara, after 411 EVMs and Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) malfunctioned during the Lok Sabha byelection on Monday, the Election Commission had announced repolls in the affected 49 booths. On Wednesday, repolling was held in 49 booths in Sakoli, Bhandara, Gondia, Arjuni and Moregaon in Maharashtra.

The bypoll there was necessitated after sitting BJP MP Nana Patole resigned from the party in December 2017. The BJP has fielded Hemant Patle against NCP-Congress candidate Madhukar Kukde.