Lucknow: More than 60 per cent of 15.6 million voters exercised their franchise for the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections covering 49 seats spread over 13 districts in the Yadav belt and Bundelkhand on Thursday sealing the fate of 829 candidates in the EVMs.
Brisk polling on a peaceful note has been reported from all the seats which started on a dull note at 0700 hrs this morning.Polling ended at 1700 hrs but the voters who are in the queues would be eligible to vote.
According to Election Commission percentage of polling was 50.16 per cent till 1500 hrs.
Surprisingly this phase has recorded the highest percentage of voting till 1500 hours when in the past four phases it was between 41 to 47 per cent polling at that time. EC sources said the highest polling upto 1500 hours were reported from Lalitpur in Bundelkhand region where it ws 58 per cent while the lowest was recorded at Kanpur city with jut 40 per cent.
In Kanpur, people mostly women were seen outside the polling booth even before 0700 hrs.
Some dispute arose in Begumpurwa booth under Kanpur Cantonment seat when some people sat on dharna after their names were not registered in the electoral rolls though they had EPICs. Timely intervention of the authorities saved the situation going out of control. EC sources said polling completed on a peaceful note in all the seats. Long queues were witnessed in almost all the booths, they said. EVMs had to be changed in few booths due to malfunctioning. A report from Etah said that voters of the Gumanpur polling booth in Etah assembly seat boycotted the polling over non construction of road in their area. None of the 502 voters exercised their franchise.
Polling was held at 17,267 polling stations through 28,173 Electronic Voting Machines in this phase to decide the fate of 829 candidates, including 87 women.
Voting in all the four phases was held peacefully with the average turnout being registered between 55 to 60 per cent.
A terror free election had also resulted in a record turnout of female voters and voting trend so far recorded more members of fairer sex using their rights than their male counterparts in many of the constituencies.
In the fifth phase, the job of the law enforcing agencies was not easy as this time 13 districts which went to polls together included Bundelkhand region and Samajwadi Party dominated belt where maximum number of violence incidents took place in last elections.
Prominent candidates in the fray for the fifth phase elections were BJP candidate and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti from Charkhari seat in Mahoba district while leader of the Opposition in the UP assembly Shivpal Singh Yadav contested from Jaswantnagar seat in Etawah district. Several UP ministers and their kin were also in the fray.
Premlata Katiyar and Sakshi Maharaj, both of BJP, contested from Kalyanpur seat in Kanpur and Bhogao seat in Mainpuri district respectively. UP minister and BSP candidate Jaiveer Singh contested from Karhal seat in Mainpuri while Sikha Mishra, also of BSP and wife of former UP minister Anant Kumar Mishra was in the fray from Maharajpur seat in Rambail Nagar district. (PTI)