An estimated 56 per cent voters exercised their franchise for 18 seats in the sixth and final phase of the longest-ever lok Sabha election in UP on Monday. The polling by and large remained peaceful barring a few incidents of clashes.
State chief electoral officer Umesh Sinha said here on Monday evening that the polling was completed on a peaceful note with no untoward incident being reported. Polling in three Assembly segments in Robertsganj seat ended at 4 pm while at other places, it ended at 6 pm. The voting percentage on 18 seats at 5 pm was 51.24 and the same went up to around 55.29 per cent in one hour.
The fate of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav from Azamgarh, BJP’s Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur, UP Assembly Speaker and SP candidate Mata Prasad Pandey from Doomariaganj, Minister of State for Home and Congress candidate RPN Singh from Kushinagar, AAP’s chief Arvind Kejriwal also from Varanasi, Bhojpuri actor and Congress candidate Ravi Kishan from Jaunpur and BJP MlA Kalraj Mishra from Deoria was sealed in the EVMs on Monday.
An FIR was also registered against Congress candidate from Varanasi Ajay Rai at the Chetganj police station for sporting party symbol while voting at Ramnagar polling booth. The FIR against Rai was registered under Sections 126 and 130 of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951. A notice was also served on the Congress candidate. In similar incident in Azamgarh, an FIR was lodged against Samajwadi Party MlA Abhay Narayan Patel for threatening officials at a polling centre. The Deputy Commandant of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police lodged the case against the SP MlA at Raunapar police station.
In Varanasi, several voters in Pilikothi area staged a demonstration before the polling booth after several names were found missing from the voters’ list. Police had to use a mild force to disperse agitated people. A report from Ghosi said the Central observer suspended a booth level officer (BlO) Arif deployed at booth number 160 at Sanskrit Pathshala under Sadar Assembly segment. The BlO was suspended after several names of voters were found missing from the voters’ list. One person was injured in a clash outside a polling booth in Saiyedraja area in Chandauli lok Sabha seat. Polling, however, remained unaffected. In yet another incident in Chandauli, objections were raised when some polling staff were found using laptops having SP’s leaders’ logo.
Meanwhile, voters in Varanasi cast votes with utmost enthusiasm. It was seen as the ‘mother of all contests’ and a record voting of around 55 per cent was recorded in this city. In 2009 elections,Varanasi polled 42.6 per cent polling. According to the EC till 5 pm, Doomariaganj polled 50.60 per cent votes, Maharajganj 54.40 per cent, Gorakhpur 51.12 per cent, Kushinagar 52.80 per cent, Deoria 50.40 per cent, Bansgaon 48 per cent, lalganj 52.50 per cent, Azamgarh 52.30 per cent, Ghosi 50.86 per cent, Salempur 48.54 per cent, Ballia 50.74 per cent, Jaunpur 50.40 per cent, Machlishahr 48.80 per cent, Ghazipur 50 per cent, Chandauli 55.20 per cent, Varanasi 51.80 per cent, Mirzapur 51.52 per cent and Robertsganj 52.40 per cent.
A number of voters in Gorakhpur and Basgaon lok Sabha seats failed to exercise their franchise after their names were found missing in the voters’ list. However, SSP Akash Kulhari said the voting was peaceful in Gorakhpur and Basgaon parliamentary constituencies and no untoward incident was reported from both the constituencies. A woman sustained burn injures after minor fire broke out following gas leakage at a polling centre at Pakariyar Vishunpur in Mahrajganj parliamentary constituency. The wounded was admitted to Gorakhpur medical college. A report from Varanasi said polling at Nevadeta Shiksha Sadan in Tulsipur was delayed and there was over one kilometre-long queue and several voters had to return without casting their votes.
Another report from Sidharthnagar district said voters of Edegra village under Doomariaganj lok Sabha seat boycotted the polls due to non-electrification of their village. Around 950 voters boycotted the polls even after BJP candidate Jagdambika Pal went to the village to persuade them to vote.
Except some technical glitches in EVMs at a few polling booths early in the morning, the process started on a smooth note. Faulty EVMs were immediately replaced. In some rural and urban booths, voters were seen at the booths even before 7 am. long queues were seen within 30 minutes as the polling started. Undeterred by sweltering heat, voters reached the booths as early as possible.
More than 3.16 crore voters were eligible for vote in the last phase of elections of which 1.73 crore were male and 1.42 crore were women. There were 31,483 polling stations in this phase out of which 7,228 were identified as critical booths. In the 2009 lok Sabha elections, the average polling percentage in these 18 seats was 46.55 while during 2012 Assembly elections, it was 56.28 per cent. In this phase over 1,49,000 number of security personnel were deployed in which over 350 companies were Central forces.
To ensure free and fair elections, the EC had pressed into service, 37 general observers, 18 expenditure observers, two police observers, three awareness observers and 4,594 micro observers. The EC deployed around 4 dozen senior State Government officers and policemen as assistant observers to monitor the polls while all the sensitive booths went for webcasting. Varanasi has the highest number of 42 candidates where 3 balloting units of the EVMs were used for polling. Nine constituencies had more than 16 candidates where two balloting units of the EVMs were used.
Basgaon had the lowest number of 12 candidates in the fray. Gorakhpur seat had the maximum number of 19.03 lakh voters. Robertsganj had the minimum number of 6.38 lakh voters.