15% polling in 2 hours in Haryana bypoll

Haryana's lone Jind seat assembly bypoll registered an over 15 per cent voter turnout in its first two hours on Monday.

"The poll percentage till 9 a.m. was 15 per cent," the District Electoral Officer Amit Khatri told reporters.

Despite the early morning chill, voters could be seen queued up at some of the polling stations even before the voting exercise started at 7 a.m. It will continue till 5 p.m.

Tight security arrangements have been put in place. Over 3,000 Haryana Police personnel and para-military forces have been stationed in the constituency.

Over 1.72 lakh registered voters are set to exercise their franchise in Jind. The constituency has a substantial vote of the Scheduled Castes (SC) and backward classes (around 50 per cent) and Jats (around 25 per cent).

The bye-election is a test for all the four major parties in the fray -- the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the newly formed Jannayak Janata Party (JJP). There are total 21 candidates in the fray.

The fate of the four main candidates, Randeep Singh Surjewala (Congress), Krishan Middha (BJP), Umed Singh (INLD) and Digvijay Chautala (JJP), will be decided by the voters.

The bye-election was necessitated after the death of INLD legislator Hari Chand Middha in August 2018.

Counting of votes will take place on January 31.

In the 2014 assembly elections, the INLD got 31,631 votes, followed by the BJP (29,374) and Congress (15,267).-IANS