BJP workers stage stir, demand DM's arrest for party's loss in

Hundreds of BJP workers staged a dharna at the Civil Lines police station here, seeking an FIR against District Magistrate Hrishikesh Bhaskar Yashod, while holding him responsible for the party's defeat in the just-concluded mayoral polls in Aligarh.
While the saffron party had swept the urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh, winning 14 of the 16 mayoral posts on offer, Aligarh was one of the two seats where it lost.
Angered by the defeat of their candidate from this "BJP bastion", the irate workers of the party blamed the district authorities for the names of nearly 90,000 voters allegedly missing from the list and staged the protest last night.

BJP leader Manav Mahajan said the city unit chief of the party, Vivek Saraswat, had given an application for lodging a report at the Civil Lines police station on November 29 in this connection and also apprised Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the state election commissioner of the matter.
For nearly five hours, the protesting BJP leaders were involved in a heated exchange with senior district officers at the police station, after Station House Officer Javed Khan expressed his inability to file an FIR against the DM and ADM (city).
On December 1, the day the votes polled in the urban local body elections were counted, BJP leaders had demanded a recounting after it became clear that party nominee Rajeev Kumar was going to lose by a margin of over 10,000 votes from Aligarh.

The DM, however, had refused to concede to the demand and BSP candidate Mohammed Furqan was declared elected.
Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rajesh Pandey said there was no provision for filing an FIR against the DM in such matters and added that the complaint of the BJP leaders was forwarded to the district election officer and State Election Commission.