BAGALKOT: The polling for the by-election held for the Bagalkot Assembly constituency was rocked with allegations of ‘cash-for-vote’ after a person— said to be a Congress leader— was allegedly found to be distributing money to voters on Thursday.
After the video went viral, the Election Commission of India (ECI) ordered filing of an FIR against the accused, Jaffer Bepari, a resident of Navanagar in Bagalkot. According to the video, the accused allegedly distributed money in Vombe colony in Bagalkot.
Meanwhile, the polling was held peacefully in Bagalkot with the constituency recording a total of 68.74% polling a slight dip from the 2023 Assembly election (69.46%).
The bypoll was necessitated following the demise of Congress legislator HY Meti last November owing to age-related ailments.
While the Ruling Congress fielded Meti’s younger son, Umesh Meti, the BJP gave ticket to former MLA Veeranna Charantimath. HY Meti had defeated Charantimath by over 5,000 votes in the 2023 Assembly elections.
The polling was held in 319 polling booths across the constituency.
Long queues were seen outside the polling booths from morning. Anticipating high temperatures later in the day, voters were seen arriving at their respective polling booths as soon as voting commenced in the morning.
At a few polling booths, women voters appeared to be outnumbering their male counterparts. Young women were queued up outside ‘Sakhi’ polling stations. First-time voters were also excited to exercise their franchise. Flashing their index finger which had the mark of voting with the indelible ink, many people were seen taking pictures at the selfie point arranged by the Bagalkot administration.
While the district administration had already permitted elderly persons aged 85 and above to vote from their homes in advance, many elderly voters were seen at polling booths.
Bagalkot constituency has a total voters of 2,59,260 voters of which 1,26,761 are male, 1,32,499 female, and 23 Others.
A total of 382 ballot units, 382 control units, and 414 VVPAT machines were used in the polling.
The counting of votes will be held on May 4.