Samajwadi Party accuses police, administration of rigging UP urban local body polls

The Samajwadi Party has accused the police and the civil administration of rigging the Uttar Pradesh urban local body elections at several places and demanded action from the Election Commission.

The party on Thursday alleged that election rigging took place in Moradabad and Saharanpur districts and claimed that Muslim voters were intimidated and prevented from exercising their franchise under the guise of checking identity cards.

SP national executive member Arvind Kumar Singh, in a letter to the state election commissioner (SEC), demanded strict action against the police personnel who "intimidated the voters in Moradabad".

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In another letter to the SEC, the party alleged that the names of over 100 voters each were missing from voter lists in ward number 39 in Gorakhpur.

Kumar, along with senior SP leaders, including Ravidas Mehrotra, Rajpal Kashyap and Rajendra Chaudhary, met State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar on Thursday evening and handed over to him the party's letter listing the allegations.

The Uttar Pradesh Congress also alleged that the names of its leaders were removed from the voters' list in Lucknow.

"Names of Congress leaders missing from the voter list. How? When Capt Banshidhar Mishra, the chairperson of the Indian Overseas Congress reached the booth in Lucknow, he came to know that his name was not there in the voter list. The same thing happened with Meenakshi Kaul as well," it tweeted.

The Congress alleged that its leaders were made to sit at Gautampalli police station when they filed a complaint about this to the district magistrate. Lucknow district officials said the allegations will be looked into.

A voter turnout of nearly 52 per cent was recorded in the first phase of the urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. The voting commenced at 7 am and ended at 6 pm.