POLITICAL FURORE, COPS' SUSPENSION MARK KEY BYPOLLS TO 9 SEATS IN U.P.

LUCKNOW: Voting for the highstakes bypolls to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh closed on Wednesday amid a volley of allegations lobbed between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), the suspension of five police officials and multiple complaints to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The turnout was 49.3%, a decline from the 2022 polling percentage of 62.49% for the same seats. Kundarki recorded the highest voter turnout of 57.7% while Ghaziabad registered the lowest polling of 33.3%. The bypolls were called because the incumbent lawmakers got elected to the Lok Sabha.

The bypolls are important because they're the first electoral contest in India's most-populous province since the Lok Sabha polls, where the BJP's tally dropped from 62 to 33 and the SP emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 37 seats.

With stakes high, top BJP and SP leaders kept tabs on polling throughout the day, collecting feedback from party workers.

SP leaders objected to the checking of voter identity cards by police personnel while the BJP demanded checking the identity of burqa-clad women voters, alleging their IDs did not match their faces.