Only 34% vote as Kishor makes electoral debut
A low voter turnout of over 34 per cent was registered on Thursday in the by-poll to Bihar’s Bankipur assembly seat where Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who was making his electoral debut, challenged decades of BJP dominance.
The electoral fate of 26 candidates, including the BJP’s Neeraj Kumar Sinha and Rekha Gupta of the RJD, will be decided on August 3.
According to the ECI, the voter turnout stood at only 34.24 per cent, a drop of more than seven per cent compared with 41.45 per cent in the Assembly polls of November last year.
The voter participation flew in the face of political heat on the polling day, generated by trading of charges between Kishor and the BJP.
The BJP is hoping to retain the seat vacated by its national president Nitin Nabin. Earlier in the day, Kishor alleged that the police had wrongfully picked up his supporters at the behest of the ruling party, and the BJP charged the former poll strategist with having brought in “fake voters”.
The Jan Suraaj Party founder, who stormed a police station in Patna late Wednesday evening, staying put till the early hours of Thursday, accused the police of acting as an “extension of a political party” and “trying to help the BJP” by detaining his party workers and “obstructing its voters”.
“More than 16 Jan Suraaj workers were detained by the police between Wednesday evening and night. They were kept at different police stations without specifying any reason, and then shifted to Danapur police station before being taken to the Shahpur PS,” he said.
Mritunjay Tiwari, who was recently inducted into the BJP after resigning from the RJD, alleged that Jan Suraaj workers were trying to bring fake voters to Bankipur.
“The BJP has requested ECI officials to verify and inspect voter identities, so that people can exercise their democratic right to vote freely, fairly, and transparently,” he said.
Tiwari claimed that Jan Suraaj’s strategy of using “fake voters” would not work, and Kishor’s “security deposits will be forfeited”.
Talking to reporters outside a polling booth near Patna’s Gol Ghar where Kishor and his party colleagues had a heated exchange with City SP (Central) Mamta Kalyani, the Jan Suraaj founder alleged that his polling agents were being detained by the police.
Kalyani repudiated the allegations, saying, “Everyone has the right to vote. No one is being obstructed. We are making a continuous appeal that everyone should come and vote, but not form groups because that violates election protocols.”
BJP and Jan Suraaj workers engaged in a mild altercation in the Shrikrishnapuri area within the assembly segment, but were pacified by the police.
Prominent politicians who voted in the assembly segment that covers a major part of the state capital include local BJP MP Ravishankar Prasad, senior party leader CP Thakur, his son and Nawada MP Vivek Thakur, and state ministers Ramkripal Yadav (BJP) and Ashok Choudhary (JDU). JD(U) president and former chief minister Nitish Kumar’s elder sister Usha Devi and Neeraj Kumar Sinha, the BJP candidate, also voted.
In a post on X, Nabin, who gave up the seat in April upon election to the Rajya Sabha, barely six months after having won it for a fifth consecutive term, had urged voters to come out in large numbers and “strengthen the resolve for a developed India”.
According to a statement issued by the Patna SSP office, several individuals were taken into preventive custody because they, being non-resident campaigners of Bankipur, had not left the constituency during the 48-hour silence period, as mandated under ECI’s directives.
The police, however, did not disclose the identity of the detainees, nor did they specify if they were Jan Suraaj campaigners. Kishor claimed that around 10 of the detained Jan Suraaj workers were from Patna district and not outsiders.
