Lucknow
Amid reports of sporadic incidents of violence and protests over absence of names in voters’ list, almost 52 per cent of the total 1.29 crore electorate cast their vote in the second phase of civic body elections in 25 districts of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.
Stray incidents of violence, too, were reported following arguments over fraudulent voting and names missing from voters’ list. Several people were also arrested on various charges.
The poll percentage could further increase as hundreds of voters were still in the queue when the polling ended at 1700 hrs.
Voting was disrupted at some polling booths due to technical snags in EVMs but later on these EVMs were rectified or replaced.
In several districts, people were detained while trying to cast bogus votes on fake documents. In Deoria, three persons were arrested from a polling station. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Deputy Chief Minister of the State Keshav Prasad Maurya cast their votes at Lucknow and Allahabad.
A total of 24638 candidates including 9656 women are in the fray. Massive security arrangements were made to ensure free and fair poll.
Polling was held for 189 Local bodies including six municipal corporations of Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Mathura, Allahabad, Lucknow and Varanasi, 51 Nagar Palika Parishad and 132 Nagar Panchayat. Of them, one ward member of Municipal corporation, 6 from Nagar Palika Parishad and 12 from Nagar Panchayat have been declared elected unopposed.
26 districts will go to polls in the third and final phase on Wednesday.
Polling was held for 3,601 wards in 189 local bodies in which fate of 24,638 candidates was sealed in EVMs and ballot boxes. While polling for the municipal corporations was held through EVMs, the other elections were done through traditional ballot papers.
SEC official here said around 52 per cent of the voters had exercised their franchise in 25 districts where polling was held in the second phase.
In the first phase polling held on November 22, the voting percentage was 52 per cent in 24 districts.
The last phase of polling would be held in 26 districts on November 29 and the counting of votes on December 1.