In Jammu and Kashmir, voting for the first phase of Urban Local Body elections ended peacefully on Monday evening. In this phase, polling was held for 422 wards spread across all the three regions- Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

In Jammu Division, polling was held in 238 wards which include 153 wards in Jammu district followed by 59 in Rajouri district and 26 wards in Poonch district. In Jammu district, around 64 per cent polling was recorded in 153 wards whereas 81 per cent polling was recorded from 59 wards of border district of Rajouri. However, in 26 wards of border district of Poonch, 74 per cent electors had cast their votes. No untoward incident was reported from any part of the Jammu division.

Chief Electoral Officer informed that 32.3 per cent voter turnout is recorded in Kupwara district of Kashmir division while Kargil recorded 78.2 per cent till 4 PM. Leh recorded 55.2 per cent voter turnout till 4 PM.

Our  correspondent reports that the boycott of urban local body polls by several political parties, including the PDP and the NC, failed to dampen the spirit of voters in the Jammu and the Ladakh regions as they came out in large numbers to vote in the first phase of elections today. Long queues of enthusiastic voters were seen outside the polling stations in Jammu, Poonch, Rajouri districts of the Jammu region and Leh and Kargil in Ladakh . Police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in strength across 820 polling stations -670 in the Jammu province  and 150 in the Kashmir division including Ladakh.