The supporters of Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party pelted stones and scuffled during the election for the post of representative in the Cooperative Village Development Bank’s Tirwa branch in Kannauj on Tuesday.
During the stone pelting, Thathiya police station in-charge Rajkumar Singh was also injured. In view of the prevailing situation, the district administration stopped the polling for some time.
The SP leaders alleged that at the behest of some leaders of the ruling party, voting was openly being influenced in favour of the BJP candidate. They alleged that a yellow slip was distributed by the BJP leaders and only those having it were allowed to vote by the polling officials while others were stopped from entering the polling centre.
Besides SP candidate Vijay Dwivedi and BJP’s Bharat Pal, three other candidates are in the fray for the post of representative of the Tirwa Cooperative Village Development Bank branch. As soon as the polling started, the SP leaders started creating a ruckus, accusing the administration of getting votes polled in favour of the BJP candidate by exerting pressure on the voters.
As the tension built up, the SP and BJP supporters clashed and pelted stones outside the polling centre.
Seeing the situation escalating, SDM Gajendra Singh, who was present on the spot, stopped the polling process.
SP leader Nawab Singh Yadav said that at the behest of the BJP leaders, the administration had distributed a yellow slip to the BJP voters and only those coming at the gate with the yellow slip were being allowed to vote.
He also alleged that BJP MLA Kailash Rajput was himself standing at the gate along with his supporters and forcing SP voters to return, following which the Samajwadi Party leader started raising slogans after staging a dharna outside the polling centre.
On the other hand, District Magistrate Rakesh Kumar Mishra said that polling was being conducted fairly and strict action would be taken against those trying to influence the polling process.
A heavy police force was deployed there and the SP activists were chased away by the cops.