Uttarakhand: Counting of votes begins in Bageshwar bypoll

Dehradun: The counting of votes in the Bageshwar assembly bypoll in Uttarakhand began at 8 am on Friday, officials said.

The votes are being counted at the Bageshwar Degree College where 14 tables have been set up and 130 polling personnel are on the job, Bageshwar District Magistrate Anuradha Pal said.

Polling to the reserved SC seat in the Kumaon Division was held on September 5 when 55.44 per cent of the nearly 1.2 lakh voters exercised the franchise.

The seat fell vacant after the death of MLA and cabinet minister Chandan Ram Das in April this year. He represented the constituency four times since 2007.

There are five candidates in the fray, including Das' wife Parvati Das of the BJP, Basant Kumar of the Congress, Bhagvati Prasad of the Samajwadi Party, Arjun Dev of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and Bhagwat Kohli of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party.

The seat has seen straight contests between arch rivals BJP and Congress in successive elections over the years.

The BJP is in power in Uttarakhand with a two-thirds majority so the results of this by-election will not have any bearing on the government.

But political observers feel that it will be a referendum on the Dhami government's decisions like the formation of an expert committee to draft a Uniform Civil Code, enacting stricter laws on forced conversion and on irregularities recruitment examinations, and a crackdown against illegal encroachments.

The BJP has 46 MLAs in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, the Congress has 19, while two are from the Bahujan Samaj Party and two are independents.

One seat is vacant for which the by-election was held.