An estimated 52 per cent of the total 1.51 lakh voters, exercised their franchise on Saturday amid apprehension of violence by Maoists in Scheduled Tribe (ST-reserved Antagarh Assembly bypolls in Chhattisgarh.
Election Commission had made elaborate security arrangements at all the 202 polling booths to ensure peaceful polling. According to sources, the leftist militants fired a few shorts in interior areas’ booths to scare away voters but polling went on uninterrupted. Officials here at police headquarters said that rebels exploded a few low-intensity bombs in Amabeda and Tadoki areas but it failed to deter spirit of tribal voters.
long queues of women were seen in interiors areas polling booths even much before start of the polling at 7 am. The voting concluded at 3 pm and administration did their best to ensure that polling staff deployed in Maoist dominant areas should return back to safer areas by sunset. The bypoll was necessitated as the BJP legislator from Antagarh Assembly segment, Vikram Usendi, resigned after he was elected to lok Sabha from Kanker seat.
The contest for Antagarh is between BJP’s local popular face Bhojraj Nag and a virtually unknown figure Rupdhar Pudo of Ambedkarite Party of India and the political analysts have predicted a complete one-sided victory for State’s ruling BJP.
The Congress candidate Manturam Pawar embarrassed party by withdrawing his candidature in final hour on the last day of the withdrawal of nomination papers on August 30. As many as 10 candidates withdrew their nomination papers one after another in one hour on August 30 and now just two candidates are left in the fray.