On Thursday, December 8, the Rampur Sadar assembly seat has been won by a Hindu candidate. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Akash Saxena imposed a crushing defeat on Samajwadi Party candidate Mohammed Asim Raja, breaching the fort of SP’s controversial leader Azam Khan. The historic victory has been completed after 70 years and 20 assembly elections.
Akash Saxena acquired 80964 votes, accounting for 61.95% of the total votes cast. Asim Raja of the SP had to settle for 47262 votes.
After the results were declared, the Samajwadi candidate accused the Rampur police of his defeat. While addressing local media, Asim Raja argued that 70% of votes were stolen in the bypoll. He alleged that the Rampur police forcibly prevented people from voting. “Elections were held in Rampur on December 5, and we had previously stated that elections had not taken place in Rampur,” he said.
The SP candidate also accused police of booth capturing. “Police did not allow Rampur residents to vote in any of the city’s 200 polling stations. Booths have been looted. Only 20% of the vote was cast in 252 polling places. All of the booths outside of the city and village were captured. There has been 50-70-80% voting. All the booths were captured. 2.25 lakh voters were denied the right to vote. Only 45,000 votes were cast, and many of them were cast by police officers. The counting has begun. However, in the city where the SP had a stronghold, where the total vote was 70%, they were not allowed to vote,” Asim Raja claimed.
However, no such cases have been reported and elections were held peacefully.
Bypoll on the Rampur Sadar seat was initiated after Azam Khan was sentenced to three years in jail in a hate speech case, and consequently disqualified as MLA. Due to his conviction, Azam Khan cannot contest elections for the next 6 years.
