Violence was reported on Thursday from various districts, including Siddharthnagar, Sitapur, Gorakhpur, Sambhal during the nomination of papers for the block pramukh elections. The ruckus broke out when opposition candidates were prevented from filing their nomination papers.
In Sitapur, three people received bullet injuries when an independent candidate Munni Devi arrived to file her nomination in Kamlapur.
Meanwhile in a shocking video doing the rounds of social media, a Samajwadi Party worker was manhandled by two men from a rival party. The woman was a proposer for a Samajwadi Party candidate in block panchayat polls and was trying to enter a nomination centre when she was attacked.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav lshed out at the BJP over the violence.
Sharing a video of the violence on Twitter, Priyanka Gandhi tweeted, that PM sahab and CM sahab should congratulate their workers in UP who indulged in stone-pelting and firing, adding that nomination papers were looted, journalists were beaten up, and women were misbehaved with, at many places.
Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the attackers were BJP workers and, called them "power hungry goons of Yogi Adityanath (Chief Minister)".