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Son bets on Amarmani

Atiq Khan

(LAXMIPUR)MAHARAJGANJ: The controversial former Uttar Pradesh Minister and sitting MLA, Amarmani Tripathi's absence from the hustle and bustle of elections was best summed up by his 17-year old son, Aman Mani Tripathi. "My father is not amongst us but we will ensure that he is released soon", said the Class XI student of St. Paul's School in neighbouring Gorakhpur.

For the youngster it was an early baptism into politics. He campaigned extensively for his father in the Laxmipur Assembly constituency in a bid to counter the onslaught of Mr. Tripathi's political opponents. Currently in Dehra Dun jail for his alleged involvement in the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla ( she was killed in Lucknow in May 2003), Mr. Tripathi may have not been present but his election machinery functioned like a well-oiled machine here on Tuesday.

Laxmipur was among the 59 constituencies in nine districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh ( Purvanchal) where polling in the last phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections was completed on Tuesday.

The sitting Samajwadi MLA had contested and won the 2002 polls from here by a narrow margin of about 5500 votes on the Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. Munna Singh of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Aziz Ahmed of the Bahujan Samaj Party are the other candidates in fray.

An essentially rural based constituency, Laxmipur has about 45 km of its borders touching Nepal. Sonouli, the last post on the UP side of the Indo-Nepal border is in this constituency.

The porous borders were sealed on Sunday evening. But the deserted look in Sonouli did not deter the voters in other segments of Laxmipur constituency to exercise their franchise.

The voting here was brisk since morning. Actually the rural voters in all the eight constituencies in Gorakhpur district and five in Maharjganj district seemed to have stolen a march over their urban counterparts when it came to casting votes.

The voting scene at the Kanya Inter College polling centre in Nautanwa seemed to belie the low voter turnout witnessed at different places in six earlier rounds of UP elections.

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