Milkipur: BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan has won the Milkipur bypolls by a margin of 61,710 votes, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI) website. While Paswan polled over 1.46 lakh votes, his nearest rival Samajwadi Party's Ajit Prasad garnered 84,687 votes, it said.
Earlier, Paswan, 38, took a decisive lead over SP's Prasad, 42, by over 61,000 votes after the 29th round of counting for the Milkipur assembly by-poll on Saturday, officials said. They said after 29 rounds, BJP's Paswan had got 1,45,685 votes, while Prasad had polled 84,266 votes, a lead of 61,319 votes.
According to the official website of the ECI, after 28 rounds of counting, Paswan (with 1,39,507 votes) was leading Prasad (79,210 votes) by a margin of 60,297 votes. Santosh Kumar of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) got 5,158 votes.
The vote counting for the Milkipur by-election in Ayodhya began at 8 am on Saturday at GIC Inter College under tight security. The election was necessitated after SP's Awadhesh Prasad, who won the Milkipur seat in the 2022 Assembly elections, secured victory in the Faizabad (Ayodhya) Lok Sabha seat in 2024.
A total of 10 candidates contested the by-election, with the main competition between BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan and SP's Ajit Prasad. The seat, reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) saw a voter turnout of 57.13 per cent. Officials confirmed that the counting was conducted across 14 tables in 30 rounds, with 76 employees deployed for the process.
Amid rising political tensions, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of electoral malpractice, claiming that BJP workers were brought in from Ambedkar Nagar, Sultanpur, and Amethi for fake voting. He criticised the Election Commission, alleging that it failed to take action.
However, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak dismissed the allegations, stating, "Whenever SP loses, they make baseless claims. The people of the state know the truth, and BJP will win in Milkipur."
More than 1.93 lakh male voters, over 1.78 lakh female voters and eight third-gender people voted for the by-poll which took place on February 5. There were 4,811 first-time voters in the assembly constituency. While BSP isn't contesting the bypoll, the Congress is backing its alliance partner SP on the seat. Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) had also fielded a candidate from the seat. (With Agency Inputs)
