BJP leader Kuldeep Bishnoi with party candidate and son Bhavya, mother Jasma Devi and wife Renuka flash their ink-marked fingers, in Adampur on Thursday. (PTI Photo)A turnout of over 75 per cent was recorded in Haryana’s Adampur Assembly segment where bypoll took place Thursday. The figure is expected to be revised as the final the report is yet to be compiled, the election officials said.
The bypoll was necessitated after former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal’s younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi resigned as MLA and switched from the Congress to the BJP in August. Bishnoi’s son Bhavya is contesting as the BJP candidate while Congress has fielded former Union minister Jai Prakash, a three-time MP from Hisar and two-time MLA as well. The INLD has nominated Congress rebel Kurda Ram Nambardar while the AAP has fielded Satender Singh, who switched over from the BJP.
Apart from these four, 18 other candidates are in fray. All candidates are males.
The outcome of the bypoll will decide if the Bhajan Lal family will retain the bastion they had never lost since 1968.
Polling in Adampur, which has nearly 1.71 lakh registered voters, began at 7 am and continued till 6 pm. “Polling went off peacefully,” Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Agarwal said.
A poll percentage of 10.5 was recorded in the first two hours. The turnout hit 22.51 per cent at 11 am, 41.24 per cent at 1 pm, 55.12 per cent at 3 pm, 69.21 at 5 pm, and 75.25 at 7.30 pm, according to Election Commission of India data.
Voter turnout at by-elections to seven constituencies spread across six states in 2022, and previous elections. In the 2019 assembly polls, Adampur had recorded 75.72 poll percentage.
A total of 180 polling booths had been set up, of which 36 were termed “sensitive” and 39 “hypersensitive.” Tight security arrangements were made by the district administration to conduct the polling in a free, fair, and peaceful manner, officials said.
During the day, at many polling booths, long queues of voters were witnessed, many among them women.
Bishnoi, his mother Jasma Devi, son Bhavya, and wife Renuka turned up early at the polling booth to cast their votes. On Congress candidate, Bishnoi said Jai Prakash would make a record of losing to the third generation of Bhajan Lal’s family.
“He will make a record of losing to the third generation of the Bhajan Lal family. First he lost to Chaudhary Bhajan Lal, then he lost against me (Hisar Lok Sabha polls earlier) and now he will lose to Bhavya,” he claimed.
On the other hand, Jai Prakash told reporters that the Congress was strong and Adampur has been a party stronghold.
On Bishnoi saying that the Bhajan Lal family was fighting this poll while being in government after a gap of 26 years, Jai Prakash said, “People will send them to permanent exile.” AAP leader Anurag Dhanda told reporters that there was great enthusiasm among voters and his party was getting good support from the public who want to vote for change and are voting on issues such as education, drinking water and healthcare.
Dhanda said the AAP would do “very well” in these bypolls and both the BJP and the Congress will get a “big surprise” when the results are declared.
The INLD candidate, meanwhile, said he got good support from a cross-section of society and exuded confidence about his victory.
Bhavya, 29, had lost his debut 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Hisar to BJP’s bureaucrat-turned-politician Brijendra Singh.
Earlier, Bishnoi had defeated the late Sonali Phogat, who had contested on a BJP ticket, in Adampur in the Assembly elections of 2019.