Terming the first phase of the Panchayat elections as `unusually peaceful’, the state Election Commission (SEC) said the voters turn out is expected to be 70 percent.
The State Election commissioner SK Agarwal said here on Friday that `` the polling time was from 7 am to 5 pm but till 7 pm there were long queues of voters before the polling booths’’. He said by 5 pm the estimated turnout was 65 percent and it’s expected to touch 70 percent. He said the voters turnout would have been even higher had the election of the village Pradhan been held along with the election of the meber district panchyat and member kshetra panchyat.
The SEC said barring the incidents of group clash and exchange of fire there was no major untoward incident occurred in any of the 73 districts where the elections were held on Friday. He said the comission has so far ordered repoll in 12 polling booth for the first phase of the poll.
In Pratapgarh district anti social elements in Shivgarh block allegedly captured the polling. The comission has ordered repoll. Repoll has also been ordered in Chilkahar block of Ballia district as miscreants poured water in ballot boxes.
In MIrpur village of Badpur development block of Farrukhabad district two persons were injured in exchange of fire. O ne person was seriously injured as he was shot in head. Six persons have been arrested in this connection. In one booth each of Sambhal, Gorakhpur and Amethi district the poll panle has ordered repoll following the complaints of irregularities.
Repoll has been ordered in aliganj block of ETah district following the complait of booth capturing and looting of the ballot boxes. Incidents of group clash occured in Mainpuri district also but the polling was not affected.
Meanwhile according to reports from the district several persons were injured in group clash where fire arms were used in over a dozen districts. Polling was disrupted in several districts over the allegations of irregularities by the rival candidates while in Amethi district a police constable tored off the voters list. Incidents of violence and firing were reported from over a dozen districts including Manipuri, Etawah, Auriyya, Kannauj, and Etah. Banda, Amati and Banjo. Polling was disrupted in Pratapgarh where a PWD employees on polling duty died due to heart attack while in Bahriach district the presiding officer in Shivpur was rushed to hospital as he suffered from heart attack.
In first phase polling was held in 218 development blocks spread in 73 districts for 921 seats of member district panchayat and 20,022 members of kshetra panchayat. For the polling the State Election commission (SEC) had set up 20,605 polling stations and 46,584 polling booths. The number of eligible voters is over 2.93 crore.
Over 3 lakh police personelsw were deployed for the first phase of the polls, which include 139 companies of the PAC and 20 companies of the central para milirtary forces including the BSF and CISF. “Even if we don’t get 5 additional cewntral forces we are determined for the peaceful conduct of the rest of the three phase of the panchyat polls’’, said SK Agarwal