Uttar Pradesh polls: Over 49 per cent voter turnout till 3 PM

Brisk polling is underway in 11 seats in the second phase of polls in Uttar Pradesh with over 49.61 per cent polling recorded till 3 PM to decide fate of 150 candidates.

According to EC sources, Nagina witnessed 53.24 per cent polling while Moradabad 54.4 per cent and Rampur 47.9 per cent polling each.

Similarly Sambhal recorded 51.40 per cent polling, Amroha 51.4 per cent, Badaun 44.2 per cent, Aonla 47.2 per cent, Bareilly 52.6 per cent, Pilibhit 48.6, Shahjahanpur 45.83 per cent and Kheri 49.15 per cent.

In this phase, polling is being held in Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Badaun, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Nagina, Aonla and Kheri.

The prominent candidates who are in fray includes Maneka Gandhi, Santosh Gangwar, Saleem Sherwani and Begum Noor Bano.

62 per cent polling in Manipur till 2 PM

Sixty two per cent of the voters out of 8.53 lakh electorate have caste their ballot in the second phase of polling for the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat till 2 PM today, election office sources said.

Polling was brisk at many polling stations in Thoubal district, the home district of Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh, reports from the district said adding that at a polling station in Thoubal 82 per cent of the votes were cast by 1.30 PM.

Reports from other valley districts of Bishenpur, Imphal East and West said 62 per cent polling was cast by 2 PM.

At Leimaram village, in Bishenpur district people refused to cast votes saying that their village was not developed and not paid attention by the government in early hours but they were persuaded by the authorities to cast votes, reports said adding they later exercised their franchise.

Manipur has two parliamentary constituencies, Inner Manipur and Outer Manipur.

The first phase poll in Outer Manipur comprising hill districts was held on April 1

Nearly 72 per cent poll recorded till 4 pm in Bengal

Nearly 72 per cent votes were polled peacefully till 4 pm today in the first of the five-phase Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, which will determine the electoral fate of 47 candidates.

“On an average 71.54 per cent of the 60,33,310 voters cast their votes in the first nine hours of polling in the four Lok Sabha constituencies of Coochbehar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling in north Bengal,” state’s Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Gupta said.

The voting was peaceful except for some stray incidents and a few EVMs being replaced, he said. The Special Observer from the ECI for the state Audhir Kumar Rakesh said, “Everything is OK. I have not received any adverse report from any observer.”

 

“We have not yet received report of any major incident on disruption of law and order or complaint of booth jamming or violation of the Model Code of Conduct,” Gupta said.

Arrangements were made for web casting and live monitoring of sensitive areas amid tight security provided by central forces which were more than double the 2011 Assembly election.

47.58% votes cast in 7 LS seats in Bihar

Polling gained momentum as 47.58 per cent votes were cast in seven parliamentary seats in Bihar till afternoon.

A maximum 53 per cent voting was recorded in Buxar and Jehanabad Lok Sabha seats each followed by Arrah, Munger and Jehanabad where 47 per cent votes were cast till 4 PM., the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Bihar, said in a statement.

Pataliputra lok sabha seat where the RJD supremo’s daughter Misa Bharti, BJP’s Ramkripal Yadav and JD(U)’s Ranjan Yadav are among prominent candidates recorded 45 per cent polling, it said.

Patna Sahib lok sabha seat, where the incumbent MP Shatrughan Sinha (BJP) is locked in a battle with the Congress contender Kunal Singh Yadav, has recorded 43 per cent polling till 4 pm.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar cast his vote at booth number 192 at the girls high school in Bakhtiyarpur under Patna Sahib parliamentary constituency.

A report from Lakhisarai said some workers of the BJP and JD(U) clashed in a bazar under Suryagraha assembly segment in Munger parliamentary seat.

No one was injured in the scuffle, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Manoj Kumar Tiwari said.

26 per cent polling in Karnataka till noon

Around 26 per cent of the 4.62 crore electorate have exercised their franchise till around noon in the single-phase polls today in Karnataka, where the ruling Congress and BJP are battling it out in a hot contest for 28 seats.

Voting across the state got off to a moderate to brisk start, as it began at 7 am and was reported at about 10 per cent in the first two hours and reached around 25 per cent in five hours, officials said.

Two officials on poll duty died of heart attack in Belgaum and Tumkur districts, police said. Polling was proceeding smoothly and peacefully across the state, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), M N Reddy told the news agency.

In the prestigeous contest in Bangalore South, where Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is pitted against five-time MP BJP’s Ananth Kumar, the voter turnout was impressive reaching 30 per cent around noon.

Polling was however moderate in other two Bangalore Constituencies– North and Central.

 

Some 85,000 security personnel, including the central forces, are provide security cover across the state with 54,294 polling booths, 8,658 of which are identified as hyper sensitive and 14,400 as sensitive.

The Election Commission has introduced Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system on an experimental basis in Bangalore South, which is among the seven constituencies in the country to be chosen for it.

VVPAT is a printer with drop box.

It prints and displays a slip for seven seconds after the vote is cast so that a citizen can also see who they cast their vote for.

The slip will then get automatically dropped into the drop box next to the Electronic Voting Machine and can’t be retrieved.

58 per cent polling in Odisha till 4.30 PM

An estimated 58 per cent voters exercised their franchise till 4.30 PM for the simultaneous second and last phase of the elections to 11 Lok Sabha and 77 assembly constituencies in Odisha today.

Nayagarh district recorded the highest polling of 62 per cent so far, followed by Keonjhar with 60 per cent and the lowest was over 37 per cent in Khurda district, official sources said.

Among early bird voters were Assam Governor J B Patnaik and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Jaydev Jena and his predecessor and Congress stalwart Niranjan Patnaik.

Barring stray incidents in Brahmagiri in Puri district, Khandapada in Nayagarh districts and allegations of rigging in Aul in Kendrapara district, voting remained peaceful elsewhere in the constituencies in 13 districts in coastal and northern districts.
In Kendrapara, non-bailable warrants were issued against 54 government employees who skipped poll duties, official sources said.

Three BJP polling agents were arrested in Dhenkanal district for allegedly misleading voters at a booth and asking them to go back saying EVMs were not working, the sources said.

An election agent of Congress was arrested for damaging the EVM in a booth in Mulasahi village in Kendrapara district.

Altogether 10 persons were injured in a clash between two groups at a booth at Gopalpur village under Brahmagiri area in Puri district with the police restoring order.

A similar incident took place at a booth at Jagannathprasad in Khandapada area where a presiding officer was allegedly manhandled by local people who accused him of persuading people to vote for ruling BJD, they said.

A voter standing in a queue died in Balasore Sadar assembly constituency, police said. Reports of poll boycott were received from several places for a variety of reasons.

Repolling was also being held in 22 booths in eight assembly segments where polling was not held due to various reasons, including snatching of EVMs, during the first phase of voting on April 10.