UP govt misusing machinery to make Gorakhpur BJP candidate win: Akhilesh

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday wrote a letter to the Election Commission (EC) alleging that local officials and district administration is acting at the behest of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and putting all its weight to make Bhojpuri actor and BJP candidate Ravi Kishan emerge victorious from Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat.

In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, Akhilesh alleged that district administration is "biased" and is "threatening SP party workers."

"Even small traders, village sarpanches and members of Zila panchayat are being threatened by BJP workers to vote for their candidate from Gorakhpur seat," the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said.

Akhilesh said the behaviour of the district administration in Varanasi and Gorakhpur is "not conducive" for conducting polls in a free and fair manner. He then asked the poll body to take immediate action in the matter.

Kishan is pitted against Madhusudhan Tripathi (Congress) and Rambhusal Nishad (SP) from Gorakhpur parliamentary constituency, which is among the 13 seats that will go to polls in the final phase of the general election on Sunday.

The seat was being held by Adityanath for five times (1999-2017) when he became the Chief Minister of the state after BJP won the 2017 Assembly elections.

Currently, Praveen Kumar Nishad is the sitting MP from this constituency after he won the last year's by-poll on an SP ticket.