Stage set for Rae Bareli bypoll amidst tight security

Amidst trading of charges between Congress, whose party chief Sonia Gandhi is seeking re-election from this Lok Sabha constituency, and Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party, the stage was set for polling in Monday’s by-election amidst tight security.
Samajwadi Party state unit chief Ram Saran Das shot off a letter to Election Commission alleging that Ms Gandhi’s election agent Priyanka had hatched a conspiracy to indulge in booth-capturing in the bypoll and the younger Gandhi should be ordered out of the constituency immediately, said party general secretary Beni Prasad Verma, whose son-in-law is SP nominee in the poll, at a press conference in Lucknow.


Mr Verma charged Ms Priyanka with hatching a “conspiracy to capture booths during Monday’s polling” and a large number of plainclothes police personnel from Congress-ruled states of Punjab and Haryana had reached Rae Bareli to implement the plan.
In another letter to the poll panel, SP candidate Rajkumar Chaudhary said Ms Priyanka could not become the election agent as she enjoyed SPG security. The letter alleged she had been terrorising the electorate.
The returning officer of Rae Bareli, however, rejected the SP’s demand that Ms Priyanka be asked to leave the constituency.
Congress hit back by sending a letter to EC charging that two ministers and three MPs of SP were still camping in Rae Bareli in violation of the poll watchdog’s deadline for political functionaries enjoying state security and who were not voters to leave the Lok sabha constituency. PTI
District Congress president Uma Shankar Mishra said, SP ministers Khwaja Haleem and Ram Ashray Vishwakarma and three SP MPs were camping along with their security personnel in the constituency in “gross violation” of its directive.
The EC had ordered all political functionaries who enjoyed state security and were not voters to leave the constituency by 5 pm on Saturday.
Besides Ms Gandhi, others among the 16 contestants in fray are SP’s greenhorn in the battle of ballots Mr Rajkumar Chaudhary, BJP’s reluctant nominee Vinay Katiyar and Apna Dal candidate Prabha Singh Lodhi.
Pollsters predict a huge victory for Ms Gandhi in the seat, which is a favourite hunting ground for the Nehru-Gandhi family and people close to it. They have won 13 Times out of the 16 polls so far.