The by-election to the Bawana Assembly constituency on Wednesday was marked by low turnout, with 45% of the registered voters turning up to cast their ballot on a rainy day.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. in 67 polling locations in the constituency, which fell vacant after Aam Aadmi Party MLA Ved Prakash resigned and joined the BJP in March.
Till 1 p.m., the turnout was 27.31%, according to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi, Chandra Bhushan Kumar.
By 5 p.m., the turnout had crossed 40%, reaching 45% of the 2.94 lakh registered voters when polls closed at 6 p.m. In the 2015 Assembly elections, the turnout was 61.83%.
‘No untoward incident’
As per the CEO, five ballot units and five control units of the Electronic Voting Machines and 34 Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units were replaced during the mock election before the polls officially opened.
“No untoward incident took place during polling,” the CEO said, adding that one ballot unit, one control unit of an EVM and 17 VVPATs, which were deployed in 100% of polling booths for the first time, were replaced during polling due to “error reports”.
This time round, Mr. Prakash contested on the BJP ticket, three-time Congress MLA Surender Kumar remained his party’s choice and former Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Ramchandra fought as the AAP candidate.
A total of eight candidates in the fray will find out the results on August 28, when votes are counted.
Voting for development
While the rain played spoilsport, those who came out to vote in Bawana’s Pooth Khurd village had development on their minds.
For Mangey Ram, the by-election was more about Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal than individual candidates.
“Because of Mr. Kejriwal we have clean water to drink and better compensation for our land,” he said.
Others, however, recalled the 15-year tenure of Mr. Kumar, saying that the sewers and water lines were laid when he was MLA.
“Whatever we have here is because of Mr. Kumar. Mr. Prakash was nowhere to be seen, while Surender was there whenever the public called or if there was any death or celebration,” said Nirmala, another resident of the village resident.
In the urban parts of the constituency, including Rohini’s Sector 23, the residents said one of the issues that had not been addressed was the condition of roads, pointing to the large potholes around the polling station.
Meanwhile, Daljeet Singh, a resident of Sardar Colony, said he still has to go neighbouring colonies to get water. “Even today we don’t have piped water and sewers in our colony. None of the governments have been able to deliver on basic infrastructure,” he said.