New Delhi: A police officer was caught on camera pointing a pistol at civilians and threatening to fire at them. Five police personnel were suspended for violating election commission (EC) guidelines prohibiting them from examining the identity cards of voters. Opposition party supporters, especially Muslims, were allegedly prevented or discouraged through strong-arm tactics by the police from casting their vote at multiple stations. An opposition candidate was so aggrieved by allegations of bias and misconduct against Muslims and his booth agents that he demanded that the entire election be scrapped and conducted afresh. The Election Commission of India had to take cognisance of these complaints of arbitrary checking and preventing voters from voting and issue directions to officials on the ground to ensure free and fair elections without any bias against any community.

These are just some of the highlights of an action-packed bypoll in Uttar Pradesh where voting was conducted on nine seats on November 20.

After a heated campaign by the two main blocs – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) – all eyes were on the actual voting process amid rising concerns regarding administrative partiality and police excesses.

In the end, the nine seats recorded an average voting percentage of 49.3. Kundarki, Meerapur and Katehari seats recorded the highest voting percentage – 57.7, 57.1 and 56.9 respectively. The urban seat of Ghaziabad, as expected, recorded the lowest turnout – a dismal 33.3%. Khair in Aligarh and Phulpur in Prayagraj also did not do that well as they saw turnouts of 46.3% and 43.4% respectively. Karhal had a turnout of 54.1%, Majhawan 50.4 % and Shishamau 49.1%.

The voting process was marred by controversies from the outset as the opposition SP shared multiple videos allegedly showing its voters facing trouble casting their vote. While we cannot independently verify each of the videos shared by the opposition, several complaints of misconduct from the police on duty were acknowledged by election and administrative officials themselves.

The Akhilesh Yadav-led SP accused the police of bias and alleged that some officers and officials were working in the capacity of BJP workers. “It seems that the senses of the Election Commission have dulled. It can neither see nor hear despite so many complaints. BJP wants to........

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