Behind BJP’s stunning win in UP bye-poll, police coercion and dodgy voter slips, claim Muslim voters

At 9 am on November 20, Mohsin Haque*, 30, walked out of his home in Hameerpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Kundarki constituency to cast his vote.

Kundarki was holding a bye-election to elect an MLA after its former legislator, Zia ur Rehman Barq, was elected member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.

The polling centre, as always, was the village’s primary school.

But that morning, there was an unusual sight on the concrete road that cuts through the village. Nearly 60 police officials stood outside the village mosque. Most of them were from three local police stations – Mundha Pande, Katghar and Bhojpur.

“They were checking everyone’s IDs and letting in only a few people,” Haque recalled. “The police official who checked mine told me to come after 10 am.”

Election Commission rules dictate that only election officials can check identity cards during an election, and not police officials.

When Haque returned at 11 am, another police official told him to come after 1 pm. By now, word had spread that the police were only letting Hindu voters into the polling centre and wielding sticks on anyone who argued, Haque said.

“I reached the booth at 1.30 pm, but Rinku and Yaadram, the BJP booth presidents in our village,...

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