Amidst incidents of violence, intimidation, abductions and assault on a police officer, the elections for block pramukhs concluded on Saturday.
Of the total 825 seats of block pramukhs, polling was held for 476 blocks on Saturday. The candidates for the rest of the seats were declared elected unopposed earlier by the State Election Commission as only one nomination paper was filed. The polling was held from 11am to 3 pm.
There were 1,174 candidates in the fray for 476 block pramukh seats. Due to non-completion of the tenure of Mujehna block in Gonda district, the election of the block pramukh was not held there.
According to official sources, supporters of independent candidates clashed in Sarwan Khera block of Kanpur Dehat. Vehicles were vandalised and several rounds were fired. One candidate in the block is the sister-in-law of Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Mahesh Trivedi. In Sarwan Khera block, Urvashi Chandel and Mahesh Trivedi's sister-in-law Upma Trivedi were in the fray. At the time of voting, in the afternoon, the supporters of Urvashi accused Upma's supporters of intimidation and obstruction while going to the polling station. District Magistrate JP Singh and Superintendent of Police Keshav Kumar Chaudhary also reached the spot and controlled the situation.
In Etawah, the supporters of the BJP MLA Sarita Bhaduria allegedly manhandled Superintendent of Police Prashant Kumar. In Miyaganj block of Unnao district, a local journalist was assaulted by Chief Development Officer Divyanshu Patel along with BJP workers for making a video of the intimidation of the party opponents.
In Siddhartha Nagar, an elected block development committee member and voter in block pramukh election was allegedly abducted while he was on his way to crematorium for the cremation of his father. Later the last rites were performed by other members of the family.
In Aspur Devsara block of Pratapgarh, the police had to fire in the air to control the troublemakers. During polling in Aspur Devsara block, at around 1 pm when the police rushed to disperse a crowd which gathered there, people started pelting bricks and stones. The police fired in the air to control the situation. During voting in Budhana block of Muzaffarnagar, the supporters of the opposition candidate started shouting slogans when the BJP MLA arrived at the polling centre. Supporters from both sides came face to face. Naresh Tikait, president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, also reached the spot. Tikait alleged that the administration was working under the pressure of BJP.
In Saharanpur, there was uproar over helpers being given to BDC members supporting the BJP candidate and not to the members of the opposition Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate. In Baghpat, RLD workers clashed with the police.
Samajwadi Party and BJP workers clashed during polling in Sumerpur block of Hamirpur district. Both sides indulged in heavy stone pelting and two vehicles were damaged and SP candidate and several others were injured.
BJP's state general secretary JPS Rathore said that more than 334 of the elected unopposed block pramukhs belong to the BJP. According to Rathore, who is handling the panchayat elections for the party, BJP will register a great performance in the panchayat polls. He said the BJP would win most of the seats for which polling was held on Saturday.