Patna, July 30 -- A low voter turnout of over 34 per cent was registered on Thursday in the by-poll to Bihar's Bankipur assembly seat where Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who was making his electoral debut, challenged decades of BJP dominance.
The electoral fate of 26 candidates, including the BJP's Neeraj Kumar Sinha and Rekha Gupta of the RJD, will be decided on August 3.
According to the EC, the voter turnout stood at only 34.24 per cent, a drop of more than seven per cent compared with 41.45 per cent in the assembly polls of November last year.
The tepid voter participation flew in the face of political heat on the polling day, generated by trading of charges between Kishor and the BJP which seeks to retain the seat vacated by its national president Nitin Nabin.
Earlier in the day, Kishor alleged that the police had wrongfully picked up his supporters at the behest of the ruling party, and the BJP charged the former poll strategist with having brought in "fake voters".
The Jan Suraaj Party founder who stormed a police station in Patna late Wednesday evening, staying put till the early hours of Thursday, accused the police of acting as an "extension of a political party" and "trying to help the BJP" by detaining his party workers and "obstructing its voters".
"More than 16 Jan Suraaj workers were detained by the police between Wednesday evening and night. They were kept at different police stations without specifying any reason, and then shifted to Danapur police station before being taken to the Shahpur PS," he said. Mritunjay Tiwari, who was recently inducted into the BJP after resigning from the RJD, alleged that Jan Suraaj workers were trying to bring fake voters to Bankipur.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.