Wednesday, 01 June 2022 | PNS | Champawat
The polling for the Champawat Assembly by-election concluded without any major disruption with about 64 per cent voter turnout being reported. The voting was affected by a spell of rain in the afternoon which lasted for about an hour but despite this, the enthusiasm among the voters was evident. The electoral fate of chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Pushkar Singh Dhami, the Congress candidate Nirmala Gehtodi and two other candidates is now locked in the EVMs which will be opened for counting of votes on June 3.
CM and BJP candidate Pushkar Singh Dhami said that the people of Champawat had voted for development. He reiterated that he was confident of winning the election with a historic mandate. Meanwhile, his Congress rival Nirmala Gehtodi protested while alleging that her party’s polling agents had been threatened. She further alleged that leaders of the ruling party had tried to unfairly influence the election.
Earlier polling in the Champawat Assembly bypoll began at 7 AM. The voter turnout was 16.09 per cent till 9 AM, 33.85 per cent till 11 AM, 45.49 per cent by 1 PM, 52.25 per cent by 3 PM, 63.98 per cent by 5 PM and 64.14 per cent after that. The general observer appointed by the Election Commission of India, Alka Srivastav and the district magistrate and district election officer Narendra Singh Bhandari along with the superintendent of police Devendra Singh Pincha also inspected various polling booths in the constituency. Out of the total 151 polling booths, webcasting was conducted in 76 booths. Later in the evening, the district election officer thanked all the voters and personnel deployed in the electoral process for the peaceful conclusion of polling in the Champawat bypoll.
It will be recalled that during his previous tenure the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had lost the Assembly election from his Khatima constituency during February. He was made the chief minister of the BJP government despite suffering the electoral defeat. The Champawat MLA Kailash Gehtodi resigned from his post in order to make way for the CM to contest the Assembly bypoll from the constituency.
