Hectic campaign ends for bypolls to 3 seats in Haryana

Chandigarh, May 20 (UNI) The high-pitched poll campaign in the three prestigious Haryana assembly seats of Adampur, Indri and Gohana for the May 22 bypolls, today drew to a close peacefully.

The bypolls were necessitated by the Congress legislators from these constituencies joining the newly-launched Haryana Janhit Congress and losing their assembly membership under the anti-defection law.

The constituencies witnessed feverish campaign for over three weeks by Congress Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, HJC leaders Bhajan Lal and Kuldeep Bishnoi and INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala and his sons Ajay and Abhay Chautala along with hoard of local leaders of these parties.

Adampur has emerged as the most important seat as former chief minister and now a HJC stalwart Bhajan Lal is pitted against former finance and INLD leader Sampat Singh, former deputy prime minister Devi Lal's son and Congress candidate Ranjit Singh and Bharatiya Janata Party state unit vice-president Swami Raghavanad.

In all, the 1,37480 strong electorate, 63175 of them female voters, has a wide range of 41 candidates in Adampur to choose from.

The State Election Commission has set up 130 polling booths here.

In Indri, HJC's Rakesh Kamboj, Congress candidate Bhimsen Mehta and INLD's Ashok Kashyap are locked in a triangular contest. In all, 13 aspirants are wooing 1,39,468 voters here of whom 63,017 are women. There are 147 polling booths in this constituency.

Gohana assembly seat is also witnessing a triangular contest among HJC's Dharmpal Malik, Congress candidate Jagbir Singh Malik and INLD's K C Bangad.

Gohana has an electorate of 1,17,263 with 53,200 women voters.

There are 21 candidates in the fray here and 144 polling stations have been set up.

The government has declared a public holiday in these three constituencies on thursday and stringent security measures have been put in place to ensure peaceful and smooth conduct of polls, which would be held through Electronic Voting Machines.

UNI JN HS HT1948