Less than 24 hours after convicted BJP MLA from Khautli Vikram Singh Saini was disqualified and his assembly seat was declared vacant, the Election Commission on Tuesday announced bypoll. The polling will be held on December 5 and the counting of votes on December 8. It will be held along with the byelection to Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat and Rampur assembly constituency.
The Khatauli seat fell vacant on Monday when Saini was disqualified after his recent conviction in a case related to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. A district court in Muzaffarnagar district had on October 11 sentenced Saini and 10 others to two-year imprisonment. The accused were convicted under charges including rioting armed with deadly weapons and acts endangering life or personal safety of others.
With the announcement of this bypoll schedule, an EC official said all the vacancies this year have been covered. The poll panel had on November 5 announced bypolls to two assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh and one Lok Sabha seat (Mainpuri) in the state.
The Mainpuri seat fell vacant following the death of Samajwadi Party founder Muayam Singh Yadav on October 10.
Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party has demanded removal of the commissioner of Moradabad division to ensure free and fair conduct of bypoll to the Rampur assembly seat.
State president of SP Naresh Uttam on Tuesday gave a memorandum to Chief Electoral Officer of UP Ajay Kumar Shukla in this regard.
He said AK Singh had been the district magistrate of Rampur and is presently the commissioner of Moradabad division. He alleged that AK Singh as the district magistrate of Rampur acted as the polling agent of the BJP during the assembly elections in March earlier this year.
The SP leader said the party had then filed a complaint with the poll panel ahead of the UP assembly elections in January. Uttam claimed that without the removal of Singh from Moradabad, free and fair elections were not possible in Rampur.
Singh was the district magistrate of Rampur when most of the cases were registered against Azam Khan, the then sitting Samajwadi Party MLA from Rampur in 2017. He was later elected to Lok Sabha from Rampur in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Khan was recently convicted by a local court in Rampur for a hate speech against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Rampur district administration officials.
The security at the office and residence of Singh in Moradabad was beefed up after Khan’s conviction and subsequent disqualification from the membership of the UP assembly.