Odd dip in turnout puts spotlight on UP’s Kundarki bypoll

The BJP’s victory in the assembly bypoll in Moradabad’s Muslim-majority Kundarki segment has emerged as a curious case, with its candidate Ramveer Thakur defeating 11 Muslim candidates with a margin of over 1.2 lakh votes.

While it’s neither the first time the BJP has won the seat, nor the only Muslim-majority seat to be bagged by the party in this poll season, a few opposition parties – including the Samajwadi Party – have raised allegations of voter suppression, including intimidation, proxy voting and harassment in Kundarki. On poll day, four videos had shown voters alleging police harassment (here, here, here, and here). “You have no right to barricade the polling station. This has never happened before,” a woman was purportedly heard telling a police official in one.

Newslaundry found that of the 435 booths across the assembly segment, at least 154 saw a sharp dip – greater than 15 percentage points – in voter turnout as compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2022 assembly elections. Only 11 of these booths had seen a dip in voter turnout in 2022 as compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, with the highest pegged at 7 percent.

Kundarki clocked a turnout of 57.7 percent this time, as compared to 66.9 percent in 2019 and 71.2 in the 2022 assembly polls. SP candidate Haji Rizwan got just around 25,000 votes while the BSP polled merely 1,099. Over 80 percent of the population in Kundarki is Muslim, followed by Scheduled Castes. 

On the SP’s allegations, Election Commission spokesperson Anuj Chandek told Newslaundry: “We had suspended a police officer from Moradabad.” When asked if the EC is going to take any more action, he said, “I will have to check with senior officers.”

Sandeep Mondal, West Bengal-based IPS officer who’s deputed as police observer in Kundarki by the EC, told Newslaundry, “We did investigate SP’s allegations and nothing was found.”

Meanwhile, of the 154 booths, which together had a total of 1.37 lakh voters, 147 were dominated by Muslims. Thirteen of these 147 booths recorded a dip larger than 50 percentage points as compared to the 2022 assembly polls, while 48 clocked a dip anywhere between 30 to 40 percentage points. 

Apart from these 154 booths, 33 saw at least 10 percentage point increase in turnout as compared to the 2022 figures, including seven with a sizable population of Muslims, and 26 dominated by Hindus. All the other booths registered a less-than-10-percentage point increase or decrease in turnout. 

Two of the 154 booths recorded zero turnout – both of them had 1,887 Muslims on the list. These were booth numbers 351 and 352. In the 2022 assembly polls, booths 351 and 352 had recorded a 79 percent and 72 percent turnout, respectively. They saw 56 percent and 63 percent polling, respectively, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. 

The BJP had also written to the Election Commission, claiming that fake votes were being cast in Kundarki and Sisamau seats. 

When Newslaundry asked the EC about the dip in voter turnout of Muslim dominated booths, its spokesperson Anuj Chandek replied, “We have not done any booth-wise analysis yet.”

* Excluding booths for which the data for 2019 and 2022 elections was unavailable on the UP CEO website.

Moradabad district magistrate Anuj Singh had earlier denied the SP’s claims and said that polling had been peaceful in the area. “The election is going on peacefully here. Some complaints were lodged by a particular party, which were confirmed by the officials, but no truth was found in them. Our voting percentage is also good,” the DM had said.

Several booth-level officers – usually local-level government employees who double up as part-time poll officials and are responsible for maintaining voter lists – had been replaced in Kundarki. 

Amid several allegations, booth 186 stands out for registering a drop of 56 percentage points as compared to the 2022 elections. It saw a Muslim BLO being replaced by Neelam Saxena in August. “I do not know why I was appointed here. Because BLOs are residents from the same area but my house is 22 km away,” she told Newslaundry.

“I have no idea about it because the BLOs were made to sit very far from their booths on the polling day. One abnormality I noticed was that we were not given to distribute voter information slip before the polling day. I have no idea if they were distributed.”

Asked about low turnout in booths with a heavy Muslim population, Sant Das Panwar, Electoral Registration Officer in Kundarki, said, “I do not know because I have not yet done a booth-wise analysis.”

The booths part of SP’s allegations

Sharing a video of six police officers barricading a polling station and checking credentials of a Muslim voter on social media, the Samajwadi Party had alleged that the police was harassing voters on the pretext of checking documents. The party alleged six other instances.

Of these seven Muslim-dominated booths, six saw the voter turnout dip from 37 percent to 6 percent in comparison to the 2022 UP assembly elections. 

The SP has demanded repolling in Kundarki, Meerapur and Shishamau under the supervision of the paramilitary, alleging that Muslims were stopped from casting votes.

Shocked by the results, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said the “most distorted form of electoral politics” had taken place in Uttar Pradesh, even as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the NDA-BJP’s victory is the result of “security, good governance and public welfare policies of the double engine government and the tireless hard work of dedicated workers”.

The BSP alleged irregularities in polling. Its chief Maywati said that her party has decided not to contest by-elections in future “until ECI takes measures to prevent fake voting”.

Based on the SP’s complaint linked to other constituencies, the Election Commission had suspended seven police officers for violating voter guidelines in other assembly constituencies that went to the polls on November 20.

However, Siddharth Singh, Samajwadi Party’s incharge from Kundarki, said “no such suspension happened from Kundarki, despite us submitting 250 complaints of voter suppression from our area.”

Bharti Holikeri, a Telangana-based IAS officer deputed as ECI’s observer in Kundarki, told Newslaundry, “I have submitted my observation report to the commission. And I am not supposed to comment about it in the media.”

With inputs from Avdhesh Kumar.

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