Bypolls: BJP to petition EC on SP leader's bogus voting

The BJP Friday accused a senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader of Uttar Pradesh of bogus voting in the assembly bypolls and said it will petition the Election Commission (EC) over it.

Referring to pictures of Samajwadi Party's Moradabad district president Iqram Qureshi in local papers with the indelible voting ink on his index finger, suggesting he voted in the Thakurdwara assembly polls held Sep 16, BJP's state spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said he should explain the mark.

Pathak also produced video footage and the voter list which showed Qureshi as a listed voter from Moradabad city.

"We have irrefutable evidence that the Samajwadi Party leader indulged in bogus voting and we will take the matter to the poll panel," he said, adding that the ruling party leadership, gloating over its victory in the bypolls should now explain the conduct of its leader.

The spokesman said: "We have been maintaining the state government had pressurised officials in its favour and indulged in bogus voting to win the bypolls."

The Samajwadi Party (SP) won 8 of the 11 assembly seats that went to the hustings and claimed people had rejected the communal politics of the BJP as the reason for its good show.

BJP was the incumbent in all the 11 seats but managed to retain just three -- Noida, Saharanpur and Lucknow (East).