Chief minister Yogi Adityanath “announced” the results of Saturday’s Uttar Pradesh block pramukh polls before the state election commission (SEC) did, raising further questions about an election marred by allegations of the BJP kidnapping voters and the official machinery working “like party cadre”.

By the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his congratulations on the BJP’s “bumper victory” about two hours later, the state poll panel had still not officially declared the results.

Elections were held only to 476 of the state’s 825 block pramukh seats, with candidates elected unopposed in the remaining 349 or 42 per cent of seats, state election commissioner Manoj Kumar said.

Adityanath said 334 of these 349 winners were from his party, a claim consistent with allegations of violence to prevent Opposition candidates from filing nomination, including women aspirants’ saris being pulled, papers snatched and torn, and bangles smashed — all in front of returning officers and police.

While Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav condemned what he called the BJP’s “naked dance”, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate feared this was a preview of the upcoming Assembly elections that the BJP is desperate to win.

“Kidnappings, threats, blackmail, violence, attacks on women... goons running amok with guns and bombs — if the BJP can go to this extent in local polls, imagine what they would do in the Assembly elections,” she said.

Saturday’s polls were meant to elect the heads of block development councils (BDCs) — the second tier of the panchayati raj system — whose members had been elected during the state-wide rural polls in April. BDC members alone vote in the pramukh elections.

Around 6.24pm, Adityanath held a news conference to say: “We have won 635 of the 825 seats, including 334 where we won unopposed.”

He betrayed no trace of irony as he added: “It’s a victory of democracy. The people voted against casteism, communalism and professional criminals.”

At 8.12pm, Modi tweeted in Hindi: “The BJP has registered its victory in the block pramukh elections in Uttar Pradesh. The benefits of the government’s policies and welfare schemes are reflected in the bumper victory. All the party workers deserve to be congratulated.”

State BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and party spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi blamed the violence on the Samajwadis.

Yet Lakhimpur Kheri district BJP president Yash Verma and Brij Singh, said to be a supporter of party MP Rekha Verma, have been arrested on the charge of preventing a candidate from filing her nomination on Thursday and pulling her sari and that of her proposer and fellow BDC member.

A Congress general secretary has accused BJP MLA Devendra Singh Lodhi of tearing his wife’s nomination papers, saying the jostling left her with broken bangles and injuries to her neck and hands.

There were allegations of BJP supporters breaking several journalists’ cameras on Saturday. News channels showed sporadic clashes between BJP and Samajwadi workers.

Umesh Kumar, a BDC member from Firozabad, said: “I had gone to cast my vote in Lotan block but someone snatched the voter’s slip from my hands and pushed me out of the room.”

Kumar is a supporter of Ashish Singh, an Independent pramukh candidate. Surendra Mani Tripathi, the BJP candidate, said he had not heard of the incident.

Kidnappings

The alleged spate of attempted and successful kidnappings of BDC members to prevent them voting — with the fingers pointed mostly at the BJP — has already led to murder.

The husband of a BJP pramukh candidate is among five named in the murder of Mayaram, whose family says he was hit with a rifle butt while resisting the kidnapping of sister-in-law and BDC member Yadurai Devi in Bharaich on Friday.

On Saturday, a BDC member from village Thathar in Sant Kabir Nagar, Ajay Kumar Yadav, alleged that BJP supporters had kidnapped him at gunpoint on Friday afternoon from the funeral of his father and held him captive for four hours.

Ajay’s uncle Chandrabhan Yadav said the BDC member was in his car watching mourners prepare for his father Maniram’s cremation on the Saryu’s banks, when “some people arrived in four SUVs fitted with BJP flags and kidnapped him at gunpoint”.

“We took my brother’s body to Dhanghata-Umariya Bazar and sat on a dharna. The kidnappers dropped Ajay back at the ghat around 7pm,” Chandrabhan said.

Ajay said: “They blindfolded me and drove for about 30 minutes. I was pushed into a room. Later, two kidnappers dropped me back in one of the SUVs.”

Badri Prasad Yadav, the district BJP president, said: “Ajay planned his own kidnapping with Opposition members to malign us.”

Rohit Prasad, the local station house officer, said the police were probing the kidnapping complaint.

In Ghazipur, however, the Samajwadis faced kidnapping charges. A complainant, Ram Pyare, told the police that Akshay Raj Prajapati, son of Samajwadi-supported candidate Mohra Devi, had abducted his elder sister Binda Devi, a BDC member from Jaitpur.

“They kidnapped her two days ago but the police registered a case only on Friday evening. My sister has not returned home,” he told reporters.

Ghazipur city superintendent of police Om Prakash Singh said investigations were on.

Additional reporting by Sanjay K. Jha