A clash between the supporters of Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) and Indian National lok Dal on Thursday took an ugly turn during the polls in Hisar when HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi allegedly slapped a polling agent of INlD at the ‘Patwar-Khana’ polling booth of Azad Nagar for allegedly ‘bogus’ polling there.
The supporters of INlD immediately approached the polling booth and started a scuffle. Bishnoi had to confine himself in the adjacent room of the booth for half an hour.
Bishnoi could come out of the booth only when local police, including IG Hisar SS Kapoor escorted him and sent him to his home under the police protection.
Supporters of both parties continued pelting stones on each other and local police seemed helpless. Polling officers had to stop poll process for one and half hour. It could resume when SP Hisar called more police force at the spot.
But after two hours, the confrontation resumed again, supporters of both parties again damaged the parked vehicles besides window panes of polling booth there, but police managed to control the miscreants after half an hour and polling resumed second time.
Several supporters got minor injuries during this fight with each other there.
Krishan Godara, polling agent of INlD at booth number 55 told The Pioneer that “Kuldeep Bishnoi slapped him for allegedly bogus voting there. When I tried to clarify, he started making allegations on our party; this created the scuffle between us and them”.
However, HJC chief Bishnoi said, “INlD workers tried to capture polling booth number 45, 46, 47 and 48. When I tried to ask them, they manhandled me in front of my bodyguards”.
Dushyant Chautala, candidate of INlD from the constituency, who reached the spot after the incident, refuted the allegations of Bishnoi and asked his supporters to calm down. Digvijay Singh Chautala, brother of Dushyant and president of Indian National Students Organisation demanded video footage of the complete incident.
Sibhash Kabiraj, SP Hisar told The Pioneer that they have started investigation of the case after recording statements from both the parties.