Recounting of votes for the post of the mayor of Haldwani city demanded by SP candidate Abdul Mateen Siddiqui turned out to be a futile exercise as even after over two hours long exercise of recounting of votes, no difference came out in the winning margin of BJP’s Joginder Rautela who defeated the SP candidate by 1,409 votes.
It seems better performance of the SP candidate in the final two rounds of counting prompted the SP candidate to go for demanding recounting of votes.
However, accepting the demand of the SP candidate Returning Officer of the municipal corporation of Haldwani (MCH) R D Paliwal ordered to start recounting of votes of the mayor of MCH around 2 pm and it took the officials concerned of the district election office on duty over two hours to complete the counting of votes exercise.
However, when no difference was found in the final results of the mayoral polls of the MCH, the RO had to declare BJP’s Rautela as the winner of the election of the Haldwani city mayor.
And SP’s Sidqqui also accepted his defeat, saying “we welcome the people’s verdict”.
Tense moments during counting of votes at Haldwani
The security environment turned out to be quite tense here on Tuesday when the electoral battle for Haldwani city mayor between BJP’s Joginder Rautela and SP’s Abdul Mateen Siddiqui was going neck and neck. Though the BJP candidate finally managed to corner the mayor seat of Haldwani, it turned out to be an arduous task for the Nainital district police to control the situation as the supporters of the rival candidates had gathered near the election control room resorting to slogan shouting amid noisy scenes.
However, to avoid any untoward incidents, the Nainital district police had also deployed adequate police force in all the sensitive locations across the city and finally managed to complete the election process in a peaceful manner.
“We have also asked our party activists to show restrain and cooperate to maintain peace and law and order, said the BJP candidate,” Rautela said.