DNA TV Show: Reality check of SP's claim that electors prevented from casting votes during UP bypolls

Five police personnel were suspended and many others were removed from poll duty in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday for flouting Election Commission guidelines and stopping electors from casting votes in the ongoing assembly bypolls, officials said. Samajwadi Party (SP) claimed that Muslims were stopped from voting by the police. Muslim voters were harassed at the polling booth in the name of checking IDs. Police removed the burqas of Muslim women for checking. Muslim women voted less due to the checking after removing the burqas.

These are the allegations of the Samajwadi Party, but Zee News reporters were also doing live reporting from every seat and every booth in the UP by-elections. They were also doing an on-the-spot ground reality check of the allegations of SP.

When SP shared a video of a polling booth of the Kundarki assembly constituency of Moradabad, Zee News asked Muslim voters in the Kundarki seat. They expressed their discomfort but also said that they had voted. 

In the Sisamau seat of Kanpur too, SP alleged that Muslim voters were not allowed to cast their votes...but the scene at a booth in the Sisamau seat was completely opposite. In Karhal of Mainpuri, SP alleged that Muslims were not allowed to cast their votes at booths 75 and 76. When the  Zee News team reached there, people said that all the allegations were baseless.

Zee News team toured all the seats, talked to Muslims, and listened to the views of Muslim women on the issue of removing the burqa and undergoing checking. Most of the women said that they have no problem removing burqa and undergoing checking.

If we reach a conclusion, it can be said that the pictures that came from many booths seem to show that the police tried to stop Muslims from voting, but this happened in only a few places. In most places, Muslims voted comfortably and the trouble caused by checking after removing the burqa was less for Muslim women and more for the Samajwadi Party.