39.45% voting recorded in Agra North assembly bypoll

AGRA: Low voter turnout was recorded in Agra North assembly by-election on Sunday. Only 39.45 % voters out of a total 4,09,347 exercised their franchise. This was significantly less as compared to 58.21 % recorded in 2017 assembly polls.


The voting started at 7 am in most of the 438 polling booths . On several booths, the voting started late due to technical issues related to EVMs and VVPATs.

Voting percentage increased rapidly during the first few hours, till 11 am. But, people avoided stepping out to vote in the afternoon. As compared to Lok Sabha elections, young voters took less interest in the by-election.

Voters had to stand in long queues in Kamla Nagar, Balkeshwar, Awas Vikas, Jeevani Mandi, Belanganj and Lawyers colony. Over 60 % voters in these areas came out to vote.

In Balkeshwar, 85-year-old Shanti Devi came on a wheelchair to cast her vote. Vijay Nagar colony resident, Divyang Raju went to vote with his 85-year-old mother on a tri-cycle.

As many as 12 candidates are in the fray. Out of these, six represent different political parties and the remaining are contesting as Independents.

The by-election was necessitated following the death of BJP MLA Jagan Prasad Garg. This time, the main contest is between BJP, Congress and SP. BJP has fielded Purushottam Khandelwal, who is the state party unit vice-president. Former president of Agra College Student Union and senior Congress leader Ranvir Singh is also in the fray. Suraj Sharma, son of former BSP MLA Madhusudan Sharma, is the SP’s candidate.

The low voting percentage has disturbed the calculation of candidates of major political parties. After peaceful voting, candidates along with their supporters remained indulged in making assessment of voting trends in different localities. The by-poll result will be declared on May 23.

The Agra North seat which is dominated by Baniya community has been a BJP stronghold since 1985. Garg had become an MLA for the first time in a 1998 by-election from the seat by defeating Congress’s Govind Agarwal.

Garg defeated Agarwal for a second time in 2002, in the state assembly elections. In 2007 and 2012, Garg defeated BSP candidates Sarv Prakash Kapoor and Rajesh Agarwal, respectively. In 2017, when he defeated BSP candidate Gyanendra Gautam by over 86,000 votes, Garg had been an MLA from the seat for five straight terms.