By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 5 Sep: Peaceful polling was held today to the Bageshwar assembly seat where a bypoll had been necessitated due to the sudden demise of incumbent MLA and Minister Chandan Ramdas on 26 April this year.
Counting of votes cast in the bypoll will be held on 8 September and the results are expected on that very day.
Voting started today for the by-election on a rather slow note. It had rained heavily overnight in Bageshwar, which resulted in low turnout of voters in the morning. However, as the day progressed, people started gathering in good number and enthusiasm was seen on the faces of voters.
Though there are also candidates of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP) in the fray, the main contest is limited to the BJP and Congress. BJP’s candidate Parvati Das is fighting mainly against Congress candidate Basant Kumar, who returned to the Congress fold only days before being declared as the party candidate. He was earlier in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) but returned to Congress days before the nominations. There are a total of 1,17,973 voters in the assembly constituency. Polling continued even after 5 p.m. as long queues of voters remained at polling stations.
Voting in the by-election started at 7 a.m. in the morning. Till 3 p.m., 45.50 percent voters had cast their votes. Till 1 p.m., 41.8 percent voters had cast their votes. As the day progressed, people showed enthusiasm about voting. Till 11 a.m., 22.94 percent voting was recorded.
District Magistrate Anuradha Pal cast her vote at Government Girls’ Inter College, Bageshwar. At the same time, Kumaon Division Commissioner Deepak Rawat and IG inspected the election control room. Congress candidate Basant Kumar voted with his wife, Ritu Basant, at the Mandalsera booth. BJP candidate Parvati Das also cast her vote at the booth located at the Sainik Kalyan Kendra office.
