E-Paper
Curtains come down on Uttar Pradesh polling; over to March 10
On Monday, 54 assembly constituencies in nine districts of the Purvanchal region voted in the seventh and last phase of UP assembly elections amid tight security.
Amid tight security arrangements, voting was held in 54 assembly constituencies of nine districts of Purvanchal region in the seventh and last phase of UP assembly polls on Monday.
The average voter turnout in the nine districts was recorded to be 57.53%.
The total average voter turnout in the same districts in 2017 assembly elections was 59.56% and 57.48% in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Chandauli district recorded the highest voter turnout at 61.99% followed by 60.74% in Sonbhadra.
Among the 54 assembly constituencies where polling was done in the last phase, Naxal-hit Chakiya in Chandauli and Duddhi in Sonbhadra, recorded the highest voter turnout at 65.55% and 64.90% respectively.
The voting in these two constituencies apart from Robertsganj in Sonbhadra was held from 7 am to 4 pm only while in rest of the constituencies voting continued till 6 pm.
Polling remained peaceful, barring a few incidents of altercation at some polling booths. Counting will take place on March 10.
With Monday’s polling, the fate of 613 candidates, including seven ministers, was sealed in EVMs.
“As per information received from the districts concerned, the average voter turnout in the last phase was calculated to be 57.53%,” chief electoral officer Ajay Kumar Shukla here on Monday.
He said the election commission had made all arrangements for fair and peaceful polls and claimed that no untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the final phase as well.
The nine districts where voting took place on Monday include Varanasi (8 seats), Jaunpur (9), Azamgarh (10), Mau (4), Ghazipur (7), Chandauli (4), Mirzapur (5), Sonbhadra (4) and Bhadohi (3).
UP ministers whose fate was sealed on Monday include Ravindra Jaiswal, Neelkanth Tiwari and Anil Rajbhar (all Varanasi), Girish Yadav (Jaunpur), Ramashankar Singh Patel (Mirzapur), Sangeeta Balwant (Ghazipur) and Sanjiv Gond (Sonbhadra).
SBSP chief Omprakash Rajbhar has contested as SBSP-SP alliance candidate from Zahoorabad seat in Ghazipur and Mafioso-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s son Abbas Ansari has contested as SP-SBSP candidate from Mau. Lucky Yadav, the son of late SP leader Parasnath Yadav, is seeking re-election from Malhani.
“There were a total 2.06 crore voters in the last phase and of them 1.09 crore were male voters, 97.08 lakh females and 1,027 third gender voters,” Shukla said and added: “Seventy-five of the 613 candidates in the fray in the final round were women.”
Meanwhile in Varanasi, after a sub-inspector of central armed police force (CAPF) argued with polling agents and reportedly forced them to throw away a voters’ list, he was removed from polling duty immediately by district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma.
In an incident in Ghazipur, SP and BJP supporters had a heated argument and also indulged in stone pelting. Security forces present at the spot dispersed the crowd. A police officer, however, denied stone-pelting but said the matter was being probed.
In 2017, out of 54 seats, BJP had won 29, its ally Apna Dal-S 4, previous ally SBSP 3. The SP won 11 seats, BSP 6 and Nishad Party 1 seat.
