Jaipur/Hyderabad: Over 72 per cent of the 4.74 crore registered voters had cast their vote by 5 pm in Rajasthan where elections were held Friday for 199 of the 200 assembly seats. Polling was set to end at 5 pm but officials said those already in the queue at the booths by then were being allowed to vote. The voting percentage till this time was 72.37, according to the Election Commission website. The exact percentage was expected later. Polling began at 51,687 booths across the state at 8 am. The police reported a few clashed among supporters, but said polling was largely peaceful.
Paramilitary jawans opened fire in the air to disperse miscreants trying to force their way into a booth at a village in Alwar’s Shahjahapur. In Bikaner’s Kolayat, two groups clashed outside a polling booth and a vehicle was torched. In Sikar too there was a clash.
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot and other leaders were among those who exercised their franchise. Raje (Jhalrapatan), Pilot (Tonk), former chief minister Ashok Gehlot (Sardarpura) are among the 2,274 candidates in the fray.
The election in Ramgarh constituency of Alwar district was put off following the death of Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Laxman Singh. The results will be out on December 11, along with those from the other four states which saw Assembly elections in the past few weeks.
Raje, who is the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, is fighting against veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s son Manvendra Singh in Jhalrapatan, the constituency she has represented since 2003.
Manvendra Singh switched to the Congress just before the election, making the fight tougher for Raje this time. She had won 63 per cent of the votes cast in 2013, winning the seat by a margin of 60,896. Tonk, with a sizeable Muslim population, is a keenly-watched contest between Sachin Pilot and BJP candidate and Rajasthan Transport Minister Yoonus Khan, who is BJP’s only Muslim face in the elections. In about 130 constituencies, the contest appears to be mainly between the BJP and the Congress.
While in Hyderabad, about 70 percent of 2.8 voters votes in the Telangana Assembly election on Friday as the polling ended on a peaceful note, barring minor incidents.
Polling ended in 106 constituencies at 5 p.m. but those standing in queues were allowed to cast their votes. The exact poll percentage will be known after receipt of detailed reports from the districts, officials said in Hyderabad.Some 56.17 per cent voters had voted by 3 p.m.
Polling ended in 13 constituencies affected by Maoist violence at 4 p.m,
This is the first full-fledged election in India’s youngest election. In the 2014 elections held in united Andhra Pradesh, Telangana had registered a voter turnout of 68.9 percent.
The polling, which began on a dull note at 7 a.m., picked up after 9. Long queues of voters including women were seen especially in rural areas.
Chief Electoral Officer Rajath Kumar said barring sporadic incidents, the polling was peaceful and smooth in all 32,815 polling stations across 31 districts.
In some polling centres, the process started late due to technical glitches in Electronic Voting Machines.
Of the total electorate, nearly half are women. There were 1,821 candidates, including Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his 14 cabinet colleagues.
Congress candidate Vamshichand Reddy was injured in stone pelting by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in Nagarkurnool district. He was admitted to a hospital.
Tension prevailed in Kodangal constituency where the midnight arrest of Congress Working Ptesident Revanth Reddy on December 4 had triggered a huge row, leading to transfer of Vikarabad District Superintendent of Police by the EC. (Agencies)
