E-Paper
Peaceful polling underway in Haryana, 63% voter turnout till 5:30pm
Voting, which began at 7 am, will conclude at 6 pm, while the counting of votes will be taken up on October 8.
A voter turnout of 63% was recorded till 5:30pm across 90 assembly constituencies in Haryana, the Election Commission of India said on Saturday.
According to the ECI, among all districts, Yamunanagar was leading with the highest voting percentage of 56.79% till 3pm followed by Mewat with 56.59%, Palwal 56.02% and Jind with 53.94%, while the lowest voter turnout has been recorded so far in Gurugram at 38.61%.
The voter turnout for Mahendragarh is 52.67%, Fatehabad 52.46%, Kurukshetra 52.13%, Hisar 51.25%, Rohtak 50.62%, Bhiwani 50.31%, Rewari 50.22% and Kaithal 50.58%.
Ambala recorded 49.39% voting till 3pm, Jhajjar 49.68%, Panipat 49.4%, Karnal 49.17%, Sirsa 48.78%, Charkhi Dadri 47.08%, Sonepat 45.86%, Panchkula 42.60% and Faridabad 41.74%.
Chief minister Nayab Singh Saini, Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker were among the early voters.
Top leaders in the fray are CM Saini, Congress leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat, and JJP’s Dushyant Chautala.
In all, 1,027 candidates are contesting the election.
Voting, which began at 7 am, will conclude at 6 pm, while the counting of votes will be taken up on October 8.
Saini, who is contesting from Ladwa in Kurukshetra, cast his vote at his native village of Mirza in Ambala district’s Naraingarh.
Union minister and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar cast his vote in Karnal, while Manu Bhaker along with her parents, voted at Goria village in Jhajjar district.
Before he cast his vote, Saini prayed at Guru Ravidas temple and a gurdwara. Later, he told reporters, “The mood of the people of Haryana is clear, the BJP is going to form government for the third time with a big mandate.”
Paris Olympic double-medallist Manu Bhaker appealed to people, particularly young voters, to exercise their franchise. The 22-year-old athlete cast her vote for the first time, her father, Ram Kishan Bhaker, said.
Though polling was by and large peaceful, Haryana Jan Sevak party nominee from Meham Balraj Kundu accused former MLA Anand Singh Dangi of tearing his clothes and getting his assistant beaten up at a polling booth.
Kundu, who is the sitting MLA from the Meham assembly seat, alleged that Dangi was “rattled” after sensing the defeat of his son and Congress candidate Balram Dangi. In a video message, Kundu said he was at polling booth number 134 booth near the bus stand when Dangi tore his clothes and pushed him. “My PA has been beaten up,” he alleged.
According to Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal, 2,03,54,350 voters, are eligible to exercise their franchise in the election. The electorate includes 8,821 centenarians — 3,283 male and 5,538 female.
Of the total candidates, 101 are women, while 464 are Independent.
A total of 20,632 polling booths have been set up across the state, Agarwal said.
Besides the BJP and the Congress, the key contesting parties are the Aam Aadmi Party and the INLD-BSP and JJP-Azad Samaj Party alliances.
In the last assembly elections in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) 10.
The Congress has left the Bhiwani seat for its INDIA bloc partner CPI(M), while the BJP has made way in Sirsa for Haryana Lokhit Party chief Gopal Kanda, who is seeking re-election.
From Tosham, cousins former MP Shruti Choudhry of the BJP and Congress’s Anirudh Chaudhary are pitted against each other.
From Dabwali, Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya Devi Lal, an INLD candidate, is taking on the JJP’s Digvijay Singh Chautala, the great-grandson of the former deputy prime minister.
The BJP has fielded former chief minister late Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi from Adampur in Hisar, while its nominee from Ateli in Mahendragarh is Arti Rao, whose father Rao Inderjit Singh is a Union minister.
Savitri Jindal (Hisar), Ranjit Chautala (Rania) and Chitra Sarwara (Ambala Cantonment) are contesting as Independents.
Taking on Dushyant Chautala from Uchana is the Congress’s Brijendra Singh, son of former Union minister Birender Singh.
A few rebels from both the Congress and the BJP are also in the fray.
To ensure peaceful voting, 225 companies of central armed police forces have been deployed across the state, in addition to the deployment of the forces from Haryana Police.
The voter turnout recorded in the 2019 Assembly polls was around 68%.
In 2019, the BJP formed the government with the support of the JJP, while most of the Independent MLAs had also extended support to the saffron party. However, the JJP’s post-poll tie-up with the BJP ended after the latter replaced Khattar with Saini as the chief minister in March.
