"Govt used machinery, police to win election": UP Congress chief Ajay Rai on bypolls trend

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], November 23 (ANI): After BJP gets a lead on six seats in Uttar Pradesh bypolls, state's Congress President Ajay Rai on Saturday accused the Yogi government of using government machinery in the by-polls that were conducted on nine seats of the state. Rai also claimed that voters were intimidated and threatened during the bye-elections.
Ajay Rai said, "It was already decided in Uttar Pradesh that the government was fighting the elections with the help of its machinery and police to win the elections. The result of that has come out... All the machineries, and police administration was deployed, voters were intimidated and threatened. This is a complete murder of democracy."
As the INDIA bloc took the lead in Jharkhand, Rai said that it was because the Mahagathan government in Jharkhand did good work in the state.
He said, "Our government did good work in Jharkhand. Hemant Soren was sent to jail and tortured... The way the BJP broke Champai Soren and brought him to its side using money and muscle power, anger was also seen among the general public over this..."
Samajwadi Party candidate from Karhal Assembly seat, Tej Pratap Singh Yadav alleged that the administration abused power and constantly harassed people in Meerapur and Kundarki assembly constituencies during the bypolls.
"The way the administration abused power and constantly harassed our people, our activists and the people here contested the elections very strongly and we hope that we will win the elections with a good margin. The whole country knows that all the videos of the election day went viral on social media and the way the police contested the elections in Mirapur in Kundarki on behalf of the BJP, everyone has seen that and everyone knows it. I hope that we will win with a good number of votes..." he said.
As of 2.20 pm, according to the Election Commission of India, BJP is leading on six seats - Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Phulpur, Katehari and Majhawan.
Samajwadi party is leading on two seats of Sishamau and Karhal while Jayant Chuadhary's RLD is on the Meerapur seat.
The by-polls were held in 48 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats across 15 states, with notable contests in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad, Kerala, where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her electoral debut. (ANI)