Around 45% of the 2.94 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the bypoll to Bawana Assembly seat in Delhi on Wednesday.
The electoral battle in Bawana, a seat reserved for Scheduled Castes, comes at a time when the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is facing testing times after the electoral reverses in the civic polls and an Assembly bypoll earlier this year.
The bypoll was necessitated after AAP MLA Ved Prakash quit the Assembly to join BJP in March this year. While Prakash has been fielded by the BJP to regain the seat, AAP has fielded Ramchandra and Congress, which is also looking for a comeback, has three-time MLA from Bawana Surendra Kumar as its candidate.
The counting of votes will be held on August 28 and the results would have a bearing on the confidence of AAP. The Arvind Kejriwal-led party is looking for a victory, while BJP is trying to maintain its winning streak.
The polling in Bawana also witnessed the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail. The AAP had raised doubts about EVMs in Assembly polls and had demanded that paper trail should be there. Bawana had witnessed polling of 61.14% and 61.83% in 2013 and 2015 Assembly polls, respectively.
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