Akshay Acharya
Kasbapeth and Chinchwad, Pune’s Two assembly constituencies are going through a by-election on Sunday with voting process starting from 7:00 am on Sunday morning which will run till 6:00 pm in the evening.
The by-elections had to be done following the demise of BJP MLA Mukta Tilak of Kasba Peth Assembly Constituency in December 2022 and the demise of BJP MLA Laxman Jagtap of Chinchwad assembly constituency in January 2023.
Around 270 polling booths have been set up in Kasba Peth where the police also have 9 sensitive polling booths. Whereas 510 polling booths have been set up in Chinchwad. There are around 1,250 polling officials and 683 police officials looking after the voting process in Kasba Peth and around 3000 polling officials and 3,707 police personnel and 725 officers are looking after the voting process in Chinchwad.
According to the Election Commission, the voter turnout till 11:00 am on Sunday morning was 8.25 percent for Kasbapeth and 10.42 percent for Chinchwad. There are a total of 2,75,428 voters in Kasba Peth out of which, 1,38,550 are women voters, depicted a data released by the district information officer. Whereas, Chinchwad constituency has 5,68,954 registered voters.
Pune district Collector Rajesh Deshmukh said, “The election commission is directly monitoring the polling process at 390 polling stations through webcasting. We have identified polling stations, which are 50 per cent of total election centers, for webcasting to ensure the process happening smoothly without any untoward incidents.”
A clash occurred between BJP supporters and the supporters of Shiv Sena (UBT) rebel candidate Rahul Kalate outside a polling station in Chinchwad. The situation was ultimately brought under control due to the intervention of the police. Kakasaheb Dole, Pimpri Chinchwad’s Deputy Commissioner of Police said, “It was a minor clash between the supporters of Kalate and BJP, but police intervened on time.”
For the last few days, political figures from parties such as BJP, NCP, Shiv Sena have been campaigning for these seats. The counting of the votes for both the constituencies would take place on March 2. The results are expected to be out on the same day as the counting.