Around 68 per cent voters exercised their franchise on Tuesday in the bypoll for Baroda assembly seat in Haryana by 6 pm, a figure which could slightly go up later on after tabulation. The seat had recorded 69.43 per cent polling in the 2019 Haryana assembly polls.
The polling started at 7 am and continued till 6 pm amid tight security and special anti-COVID precautions. The polling remained peaceful, officials said. Counting of votes will be held on November 10.
There were 14 candidates, including Olympian wrestler and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Yogeshwar Dutt, in the fray for the Baroda assembly seat, which has around 1.81 lakh registered voters. The seat had fallen vacant in April following the death of Congress MLA Krishan Hooda, who had won it consecutively thrice in 2009, 2014 and 2019 assembly polls.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the voters were screened with thermal scanners at polling booths. Masks and gloves were also given to voters and they were asked to maintain physical distance at polling stations. The arrangement of PPE (personal protective equipment) kits, gloves and sanitizers were also made available to the polling staff.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar appealed to Baroda voters to ensure maximum participation in the voting process. “In a democracy, each vote is valuable. So is yours. I appeal to all of you to participate in this ‘utsav’ of democracy with your family members in large numbers and cast your votes,” Khattar tweeted.
Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda too urged voters in a tweet to exercise their franchise while adhering to anti-COVID precautions. Hooda said the Baroda bypoll would change the direction of Haryana politics.
BJP candidate Yogeshwar Dutt cast his vote in the morning. Before exercising his franchise, the wrestler-turned-politician offered prayers to Lord Hanuman at his village. He is backed by saffron ally JJP. Dutt had lost the 2019 assembly poll by about 4,800 votes to the Congress candidate Shri Krishan Hooda.
The opposition Congress has fielded former Sonipat Zila Parishad member Indu Raj Narwal while Joginder Malik is fighting the bypoll as an Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidate. Seven independents and four candidates belonging to other parties, including former Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini who heads the Loktantra Suraksha Party, are in the fray from the constituency.
The Baroda bypoll is being seen as a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the Congress. The ruling BJP would like to register a victory from the Baroda seat which it never won while the Congress would like to retain it. It is also a battle of prestige for former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as this Jat-dominated constituency lies adjacent to his own Garhi-Sampla Kiloi seat in Rohtak and is considered his stronghold.
The bypoll is equally important for the INLD which had slumped to its worst-ever performance in the 2019 assembly polls when the party could win only one out of 90 seats.