M A I N   N E W S

Rajnath wins in Haidergarh
BJP loses Sadabad seat to RLD

Lucknow, April 9
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh was this afternoon declared elected in the Haidergarh Assembly election, polling for which had taken place on Saturday.

But the BJP lost the Sadabad seat to Rashtriya Lok Dal nominee by over 10,000 votes.

Mr Rajnath Singh, hitherto a Rajya Sabha member, secured 70,231 votes to emerge victorious in a 20-corner contest for the seat in Barabanki district.

Mr Rampal Verma of the main opposition Samajwadi Party finished runner up by getting 29,867 votes. Close on the heels was the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Mata Prasad Choudhry who received 28,650 votes.

Mr R.D. Sharma, an Independent, secured 2087 votes, ahead of the Congress, whose nominee Mr Sarwesh Bajpai could get only 1649 votes, Mr Atiq Ahmed Siddique, Officer on Special Duty in the Election Directorate here said.

Though the counting of votes was completed much earlier, the official declaration was withheld by the officials following a directive from the Election Commission.

As Mr Rajnath Singh was not a member of either House of the State Legislature under the law he had to become member of the State Legislature within six months of assuming the Chief Minister’s post, that was to expire on April 27.

The offer to Mr Rajnath Singh to contest from Haidergarh came from an unexpected quarter. It was the request of late Congress leader Jitendra Prasada loyalist Surendra Nath, alias Puttu Awasthi, who resigned abruptly from the Haidergarh Assembly seat for him.

Mr Rajnath Singh had conceded to the Press that earlier he was thinking of contesting from the Sadabad Assembly seat in Hathras district, a seat the ruling BJP lost to Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal today.

The Chief Minister who hails from Mirzapur district near Bihar border had earlier won Assembly election only once, in 1977 riding on the crest of the Janata wave, from the Mirzapur constituency.

As a Janata Party candidate, he had then defeated Mr A. Imam of the Congress by securing 56.4 per cent votes. Later, he lost all Assembly elections he had contested. They include Mr Rajnath Singh’s defeats by Mr A. Imam in the Assembly elections of 1980 and 1985 in his home constituency of Mirzapur.

He later shifted to Lucknow but there also he lost, this time to Samajwadi Party’s Rajendra Yadav.

With this morale-boosting victory, Mr Rajnath Singh would lead the BJP as an elected leader in the next Assembly election was due early next year. With the two results of the byelection today, the strength of the ruling BJP has risen to 158 while that of the main Opposition Samajwadi Party to 103 in the 403-member House. UNI

It is second Tehelka: Cong
Mudit Mathur

Lucknow, April 9
Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad today demanded the dismissal of UP Chief Minister Rajnath Singh and countermanding the Haidergarh byelection in view of alleged mass rigging. He termed the election as “second Tehelka” and said such a practice was dangerous for the very existence of democracy in the country. The state president of the Samajwadi Party, Mr Ram Sharan Das, echoing the similar demand for the cancellation of the poll, today released a list of 31 polling booths which were allegedly captured by BJP activists with the help of government machinery.