MP Records 22% Voter Turnout Till 11 am, Violence Reported in Morena’s Sumawali

Voting started at a sluggish pace at 28 poll-bound constituencies in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday morning. By 11 am, the constituencies recorded around 22 per cent of voter turnout.

A firing incident was recorded at the Jatawar polling booth in Morena’s Sumawali area where a man was injured. The polling process was briefly halted here, while the miscreants who fired, fled the spot by the time the police reached.

Meanwhile, the election body has registered a case of breaching the model code of conduct against minister Gopal Bhargav who convened a meeting of voters at Bajna in Surkhi late evening on Monday.

To add, in these Bypolls, the fate of a dozen Shivraj ministers is at stake. While the 25 MLAs who had switched over to the have the uphill task of retaining their membership to the state assembly. There were a few like Suwasra MLA Hardeep Singh Dang who had won by just 350 votes and Narayan Patel, ex-MLA from Mandhata who had won by 1,236 votes.

Beginning the day engaging in Puja, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Kamal Nath said that the future of the MP will be kept safe by the public today. “I am not Shivraj so that I stake claims on the number of seats,” Nath added on being asked how many seats does he expects to win.

Incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan urged people to vote for strengthening democracy and choose a government that can fulfill their aspirations. While urging voters to turn out in large numbers to strengthen democracy, Rajya Sabha MP Jyotiraditya Scindia also exercised his franchise in Gwalior. Scindia claimed that the Shivraj Chouhan-led government will have a historic tenure in power.

The polling is being done as per Covid-19 protocol while sanitisers, masks, and gloves for the voters have been arranged and social distancing is being maintained.