ELECTIONS FOR THE MAINPURI LS, RAMPUR, AND KHATAULI ASSEMBLY SEATS COMMENCE

Lucknow, 5th December: Monday's by-elections for the Rampur Sadar, Khatauli, and Mainpuri Lok Sabha parliamentary seats were held in an environment of high security. 

According to the Office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh, voting began at 7 am and will go until 6 pm. It said that the vote tallying will take place on December 8. According to the officials, 24.43 lakh eligible voters will decide the destiny of 30 candidates, including six women, in the by-election for one Lok Sabha and two assembly seats.

The officials said that polling is being held at 3,062 polling stations set up in 1,945 polling centers. "To maintain a close vigil on the poll process three general, expenditure and police observers each have been deployed. In addition to this 288 sector magistrate, 48 zonal magistrate and 636 micro observers have been deployed," they said.

According to police sources, drones are being used to monitor crucial voting places. More than 17,000 security personnel, including police, have been deployed in Mainpuri, where Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Dimple Yadav is running against BJP candidate Raghuraj Pratap Singh. 

It should be mentioned that a by-election for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat was required due to the passing of the incumbent MP, SP founder and patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mainpuri is regarded as an SP stronghold, and the party has not lost there since 1992.

Dimple Yadav, the wife of Akhilesh, has been fielded by SP this time around in an attempt to play the compassion card. In reality, Akhilesh also conducted a significant amount of campaigning for Dimple on this seat. Even his uncle Shivpal Yadav, whose assembly district of Jaswant Nagar is located in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency, agreed to a truce.

The BJP, on the other hand, is making every effort to break through the fort after winning recent by-elections for the Lok Sabha seats of Azamgarh and Rampur, which were long seen to be strongholds of SP and its senior leader Mohammad Azam Khan, respectively. The party's efforts have included fielding Raghuraj Shakya from Mainpuri, who was once thought to be close to Shivpal.

This might be inferred from the fact that a number of prominent BJP figures, including state president Bhupendra Singh and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, nearly camped out in Mainpuri while chief minister Yogi Adityanath conducted two rallies there. 

Azam Khan, a prominent SP politician, has a lot riding on the assembly seat in Rampur Sadar. Asim Raja, a close friend of Azam, has been put out by SP as its candidate in this case. The stakes are particularly high for Azam because a by-election on this seat was required due to his expulsion from assembly following his three-year sentence in a 2019 hate speech case.

While making passionate pleas to the people in Rampur, Azam cited the unfairness the BJP administration had meted out to him. However, it has put him in a pickle because two complaints have been made against him for uttering offensive statements.

Along with Azam, Asim Raza has received support from SP leader Akhilesh, RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary, and Bhim army leader Chandrashekhar. Here, the BJP has chosen Akash Saxena, aka Honey, who is Azam's fiercest political foe.

In addition to being Azam's political adversary, Akash frequently files complaints against the senior SP leader. Akash was defeated by Azam with a margin of 55,141 votes in the assembly elections. But this time, the BJP is making no effort to circumvent Azam's defences as it hosted rallies for a number of prominent politicians, including Yogi Bharat and former Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Rajkumari Saini, a candidate for the BJP, and Madan Bhaiyya, a candidate for the RLD, are engaged in a straight race for the Khatauli assembly seat in the Muzaffarnagar district. Because incumbent MLA Vikram Singh Saini, the spouse of the BJP nominee, is qualified, a by-election on this seat is required. 

At connection with rioting in Kawal town in the Muzaffarnagar district in 2013, Vikram Singh was given a one-year sentence. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, tweeted on social media, "Vote for security, development, and law and order."