Lucknow, May 31: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday wrested Uttar Pradesh's Noorpur assembly seat from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

SP's Naeem-ul-Hasan polled 94,866 votes, against 89,188 obtained by his nearest rival, Avni Singh of the BJP in the bypoll to the assembly constituency in Binore district.

The SP candidate began leading in the vote count right from the postal ballot counting and continued to lead on, a phenomenon which continued to the 21st and the last round.

Bypolls in Noorpur, necessitated by the death of sitting BJP legislator Lokendra Singh in a road accident in February, were held on Monday and had seen a 57.31 per cent turnout amid glitches in EVM-VVPATs. Repolling was held in several booths on Wednesday.

The BJP had fielded his widow Avni Singh in an attempt to gain the electorate's sympathy but the party's gamble failed miserably as the opposition closed ranks in favour of the SP candidate.

There were ten other candidates in fray but they all lost their deposits in the keenly fought contest between the SP and BJP candidates.

The drubbing of the ruling party candidate is also been seen as a big blow to the BJP, specially the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, under whose watch the party has lost three parliamentary seats and one state assembly seat, in a little more than a year of its coming to power.

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BENGALURU: Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara on Monday alleged Electronic Voting Machine manipulations led to the defeat of Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in just concluded assembly polls in Maharashtra.

While speaking to reporters here on Monday, he said the BJP does selective manipulations to convince people that there were no wrongdoings. He also wanted to go back to the paper ballots system.

The ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra won a landslide victory in the assembly elections, shattering the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream to wrest power. The BJP won the highest ever 132 seats for the party, while the Shiv Sena led by Shinde bagged 57 seats and NCP won 41 seats to take the Mahayuti total to 230 seats. Congress as part of MVA won just 16 seats.

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"We analysed the Maharashtra poll outcome deeply. We felt that in many places EVMs were manipulated," Parameshwara said. He also said an obvious question would be why not it happened in Jharkhand and elsewhere. The manipulations are done selectively so that no one can question it, he blamed.

According to him, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is a leading partner. Had the Congress been the leading partner, things would have changed. He backed the ballot papers saying that the same was discussed in Maharashtra Congress as well.

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