Voting underway for Hamirpur Assembly bypoll in UP

Voting is underway for the bypoll to Hamirpur Assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh amid incessant rains on Monday, according to officials.

The polling began at 7 am on a slow pace, according to the election office here.

No untoward incident was reported from anywhere and polling was going on in a peaceful manner, the officials said. They said paramilitary forces have been deployed in adequate numbers to ensure peaceful conduct of the bypoll.

The by-election was necessitated due to the disqualification of sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Ashok Kumar Singh Chandel following his conviction in a murder case.

Nine candidates are in the poll fray and prominent among them are Yuwraj Singh (BJP), Hardeepak Nishad (Congress), Manoj Kumar Prajapati (SP), Naushad Ali (BSP) and Jamal Alam Mansoori (Communist Party of India).

Over 4 lakh voters, comprising 2.20 lakh males, 1.81 females and 10 belonging to the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise.

As many as 476 polling booths have been set up in 257 polling centres, the election office said here, adding that VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines have been installed at every facility.

Polling will continue till 6 pm in the evening and counting of votes will be taken up on September 27.

Webcasting will be done from 52 booths categorised as "critical" to keep a watch over them, the officials said.