E-Paper
UP Polls: Voter turnout dip continues; 55.79 per cent in 6th phase
On Thursday, over 55 per cent of voters participated in the sixth phase of Uttar Pradesh’s assembly elections. Overall, 55.79 per cent of voters participated in the election.
Just over 55 per cent voting was recorded in the sixth phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on Thursday. The total average voting figure was 55.79 per cent.
The prominent faces among the 676 candidates, for 57 seats spread across 10 districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, in this phase included chief minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban seat, Swami Prasad Maurya (SP) from Fazilnagar, and state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu from Tamkuhi Raj seat.
After over 60% polling in western Uttar Pradesh, the voter turnout continues to dip as polling moved to east UP. In the 2012 assembly election 55.19% and in 2017 assembly election 56.52% voter turnout was recorded in the 57 assembly constituencies.
With this, voting for 349 of the total 403 assembly seats has been completed. The final phase of polling in the remaining 54 seats will be held on March 7.
Polling started at slow pace in the morning on booths located on India-Nepal borders in Balrampur, Siddharthnagar and Maharajganj districts and also to booths in the distant Ballia and Ambedkar Nagar districts. Polling, however, picked up in the afternoon.
In Ghughli area of Maharajganj district, as well as in Bhadwar village in Balarampur district, villagers boycotted voting over issues of road, water supply and hospital.
Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer (CEO) Ajay Kumar Shukla said polling commenced at 7 am and lasted till 7 pm with no untoward incident reported from any district. Elaborate security arrangements were made by the election commission, he said.
Additional CEO BDR Tiwari said faults in electronic voting machines and voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPATs) were reported from some polling stations and they were replaced.
The EC received about 300 complaints during polling in the 57 assembly constituencies and all the complaints were disposed of immediately, he said.
The 10 districts where polling was held included Ambedkar Nagar, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Ballia.
