New Delhi: Milkipur Assembly seat in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh recorded a voting of 65.35% in the bypoll conducted on February 5 – a remarkable jump of more than 5% turnout from 2022 – amid allegations of voting irregularities, intimidation of Opposition booth agents, bogus voting and attempts by the police to influence the voting in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“This is the manner in which the BJP contests elections. The Election Commission is dead. We will have to gift them a white shroud,” a visibly-aggrieved Samajwadi Party president, Akhilesh Yadav said on Thursday (February 6), a day after the voting.
Even though the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh is yet to release comprehensive data of all the complaints lodged by the Samajwadi Party, responding to individual complaints sent through social media as well as in memorandums, the commission said they found no irregularities.
Increase in voter turnout as compared to 2022 assembly elections
Milkipur, one of the Assembly segments in Ayodhya, recorded a turnout of 60.23% in the 2022 state election. Traditionally, bypolls have witnessed a much-reduced voter turnout than during assembly elections. However, initial estimates by the Election Commission put the voting on Wednesday at 65.35%.
Milkipur is a high-stakes constituency, given the political value it carries for both sides. It is located in Ayodhya, where the Ram Mandir was opened for public in January last year.
After the BJP suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Faizabad Lok Sabha election last summer, the party cannot afford to lose in Milkipur. The Opposition also views Milkipur as its opportunity to balance its defeat in the bypolls held last November when the BJP won seven out of nine seats, amid large-scale complaints of communally-targeted voter suppression and misuse of administrative power by the ruling party.
On Wednesday evening, the SP’s state president Shyam Lal Pal called upon UP chief election officer Navdeep Rinwa to register complaints that the party’s polling agents were being thrown out of polling booths in Milkipur and that ‘fake voting’ was carried out by the BJP at dozens of polling stations. Pal also alleged that police officials were checking voter IDs of voters to intimidate them, a charge denied by the Ayodhya police and the administration.
Pal said that since the election was declared, the party submitted several memorandums to the Election Commission demanding “free, fair and fear-free” elections but the district administration and police administration “did not allow fair elections to be held.”
SP’s allegations about false cases against party office-bearers
As reported by The Wire on January 20, the Ayodhya police was lodging criminal cases based on identical charges of assault and intimidation against key SP office-bearers and workers in Ayodhya. The party alleged that the police were lodging “false cases” to influence the election and even wrote to the Election Commission demanding the removal of the station house officers of three police stations.
In Rai Patti Aminaganj, a voter identified as Ram Pandey, who donned a BJP scarf, told a local Youtube channel that he had cast six votes on his own. The video, widely circulated on social media, was scrutinised by the district administration, which released another video of Pandey in which he said that he had six family members and each one of them had cast their individual votes.
District Magistrate of Ayodhya said that the complaint of “booth capturing, fake voting or any other type of procedural irregularity” was found to be false. A field inspection of the said polling station was carried out by the sector zonal magistrate, said the DM, adding that booth agents of various political parties were present at the site.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and his party’s media cell released around a dozen audio recordings, claiming that they were phone calls made from the BJP office in Lucknow to presiding officers of the booths instructing them to fulfil targets of bogus voting for the saffron party. The veracity of those audio tapes could not be independently ascertained.
“This is a sting operation of the truth of presiding officers who are fulfilling the target of fake voting for the ruling party. Elections at their booths should be cancelled immediately and they should be suspended on the basis of prima facie audio evidence and then dismissed after proper judicial action. More such videos and audios of election rigging and manipulation by the officers are coming out,” Yadav said on X.
ये है पीठासीन अधिकारियों की सच्चाई का स्टिंग ऑपरेशन जो सत्ताधारी के लिए फ़र्ज़ी मतदान का टार्गेट पूरा कर रहे हैं। इनके बूथों पर तुरंत चुनाव रद्द किया जाए और इन्हें प्रथमदृष्ट्या आडियो सबूतों के आधार पर निलंबित किया जाए और फिर उचित न्यायिक कार्रवाई के बाद बर्खास्त भी। अधिकारियों… pic.twitter.com/mNyIGKjrpL
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) February 5, 2025
The former chief minister of UP urged the Supreme Court and the Election Commission to take cognisance of the matter. The Ayodhya district magistrate issued a standard denial to all such complaints, saying that after an investigation was conducted the returning officer was informed by the presiding officer that the voice in the audio in question did not belong to them and nor have they spoken to anyone.
‘Since morning, the BJP looted the booths with the help of the police’
The SP’s candidate Ajit Prasad claimed that he caught some BJP people casting bogus votes in a booth. “Since morning, the BJP looted the booths with the help of the police,” he said, while talking to journalists.
The SP also alleged that the police were checking the identity cards of voters to intimidate them and demanded action against such officers. The Ayodhya police as well as the chief election officer (CEO) UP, however, refuted these allegations.
The CEO UP said that the Ayodhya police had reported to it that the police were not checking the IDs of voters and that the person being checked as seen in a photograph shared by the Opposition party was a booth agent and not a voter. Ayodhya police said they were only verifying the IDs of booth agents.
SP Chief Yadav alleged that “democracy and fair election process were violated at the behest of the BJP government, as he accused the saffron party and the administration of indulging in “fake voting” and “massive rigging at many places.”
“The attitude of the police-administration was undemocratic. Booth agents of Samajwadi Party were intimidated at dozens of booths. BJP used all kinds of tricks to commit fraud in Milkipur. BJP goons created chaos to influence the by-election. They got open protection from the police-administration who grossly violated the election code of conduct by giving free hand to BJP goons,” said Yadav in a statement issued through party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary.
The SP also alleged that on some booths the sector magistrate Ashwani Kumar, outpost in-charge Khandasa Anuraj Pathak and the presiding officers together influenced the voting. Samajwadi Party agents were either thrown out or were not made agents at many polling booths, the party alleged.
The Opposition party’s concerns were not restricted to voting day. During the course of the election campaign, the SP raised a number of complaints with the EC, demanding action against the police and flagging alleged irregularities.
The party alleged that its polling station in-charge and polling agents were being issued ‘red card’ notices by the police to deter them from campaigning and to create an “atmosphere of fear.” For instance, the party said the son of Shivlal Pasi, its sector in-charge of polling station 37 was issued a notice under BNSS 168, which gives police the power to prevent cognisable offences. The party also alleged that police personnel from the Yadav and Muslim communities, which are considered strong supporters of the SP, were removed from election duty.
‘Election workers were taking along BJP workers to get votes of senior citizens’
The SP also informed the EC that the returning officer was not allowing the proper distribution of election slips by BLOs in polling stations with substantial Muslim, Yadav and Dalit populations. Its sector in-charge and some booth-in-charge were being put under pressure by the administration to campaign for the BJP, alleged the SP. The party, in a memorandum to the UP CEO, said that the police threatened its members that if they didn’t campaign for the BJP, they would be sent to jail under fake Gangster Act cases.
The SP also alleged that election workers were taking along BJP workers to get the votes of 85+ elderly and physically-challenged voters registered in their homes. UP CEO said that a report on the matter was sought from the district election officer and that “no irregularities of any kind as alleged have been found in home voting.”
“The list of 85+ voters and physically challenged voters who had opted to vote from home was shared in writing with all the candidates along with the visit schedule when voting teams were to visit homes of such voters. The home voting was conducted as per the extant instructions of ECI. The representatives of candidates could accompany the voting teams to see the process,” the CEO said.
The SP also submitted complaints to the CEO saying that Santosh Shukla, a BJP leader who was the party’s former Ayodhya city president, was made the presiding officer for a booth while members of the PDA or backward, dalit and Muslim communities were being ignored.
In another complaint, the SP said that the district inspector of schools Pawan Tiwari was allegedly applying pressure on presiding officers to ensure votes for the BJP.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, BJP leader and UP deputy chief minister, dismissed the SP’s complaints.
“Seeing the defeat in the Milkipur by-election, Shri Akhilesh Yadav has panicked! The sinking boat of SP will not be saved by blaming the Election Commission,” said Maurya.
“Unless SP expels goons, criminals, mafias and rioters from SP, the cycle will keep getting punctured and it will be difficult for SP candidates to save their deposits in 2027!” he added.
