The bypoll to Jind assembly constituency, touted as a prestige battle for the BJP and Congress, registered 75.77 percent polling on Monday.
In the high-stakes electoral battle, the BJP had fielded Krishan Middha, son of late INLD MLA Hari Chand Middha, Congress’ nominee was sitting MLA from Kaithal, Randeep Surjewala, Jannayak Janta Party’s candidate was Digvijay Chautala, great grandson of former Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Devi Lal.
The Indian National Lok Dal, which is facing a tough challenge to retain the Jind assembly seat, had fielded Umed Singh Redu.
Twenty-one candidates including two women were in the fray.
The bye-election to Jind assembly seat was necessitated following the demise of INLD’s MLA Hari Chand Middha in August last year. INLD’s Hari Chand Middha had represented the Jind seat for two consecutive terms in 2009 and 2014.
The polling began at 7 am and continued after 5 pm in several booths on Monday. In the final two hours of polling, there was a rush outside polling booths, especially in rural parts of the assembly constituency, as voters queued up to exercise their franchise.
“The polling percentage of 75.77 has been recorded in Jind bypoll,” said an official.
“The polling remained peaceful and no untoward incident was reported,” he said.
Tight security arrangements were put in place for the bypoll. As many as 3000 personnel and 500 home guards, one CRPF company and one RAF had been deployed to ensure smooth conduct of polling.
Out of total 174 polling booths, 26 were highly sensitive and 32 were sensitive booths in Jind.
Jind is an urban assembly seat with a mix of Bania, Jat, Brahmin, Punjabi and Scheduled Caste voters.
Nearly 1.70-lakh people, including 80,556 women, were eligible to vote in the bypoll.
The national parties—ruling BJP and its arch rival Congress—are deeming the bypoll as a “semi-final” ahead of general elections and also, a referendum on the Manohar Lal Khattar led Haryana Government before the assembly polls due to be held later this year.
The stakes are also high for the regional parties—INLD and the JJP –as the results would be an indicative of their prominence in the politics of Haryana state. While the INLD has an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, the JJP had got support of Aam Aadmi Party for Jind bypoll.
The bypoll will also decide the fate of Digvijay Singh Chautala and Vinod Arshi, respective candidates of two newly-formed political outfits -- JJP and Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) of BJP rebel MP Raj Kumar Saini.
The counting of votes will take place on January 31.
In 2014 assembly polls, INLD’s Harichand Middha had won with 31,631 votes and defeated BJP candidate Surinder Barwala with a small margin 2,257 votes. It is believed that Middha managed two consecutive victories from Jind seat due to voting by Jats, core supporters of the INLD and the Punjabi community in the constituency.