People of Haryana entered the record books on Wednesday by coming out in large numbers to cast their votes. In the process, they created history as three-fourth of the electorate (75.9 per cent) used their franchise.
The previous high in the State was 72.65 per cent way back in 1967 soon after the State was created.
The Election Department officials said that those voters who had entered the polling station by 6 pm were allowed to cast their vote.
Amid tight security, polling commenced in all the 90 Assembly seats at 7 am to decide the fate of 1,351 candidates. Counting of votes will take place on October 19. Over 1.63 crore voters including over 87 lakh women were eligible to cast their vote in the polls, in which stakes are high for ruling Congress, BJP and INlD.
In 2009 polls, total polling of 72.37 per cent had been recorded. In 1967, maximum polling of 72.65 per cent had taken place while in 1968 minimum polling of 57.26 per cent was registered. Similarly, in Assembly elections of 1972 total percentage of polling was 70.46 per cent in Haryana.
In 1977, the total polling percentage was 64.6 per, in 1982 it was 69.87, in 1987 total polling
percentage was 71.24 per cent, in 1991 it was 65.86 per cent, 70.54 per cent in 1996, 69.01 per cent in 2000 and 71.96 per cent in 2005. The 2014 lok Sabha polls registered 71.86 per cent polling.
Social networking sites played a key role to bring maximum young voters out of their homes to cast their votes at polling booths. Chief Electoral Officer Shrikant Walgad said overall the polling remained peaceful but also admitted that there was some clashes reported at different places, for that we have asked to report to the concerned officials.
Walgad said that candidates of Congress and BJP were contesting elections from all 90 Assembly Constituencies of the state whereas 88 candidates of INlD, 87 of BSP, 65 of HJC, 17 of CPM, 14 of CPI and 297 of Registered Parties and 603 Independent Candidates contested the elections.