Election to 28 seats of the legislative council seats passed off peacefully where over 97 percent of the voters cast their votes. Highest turnout of 99.66 percent was recorded in Varanasi, the parliament constituency of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi being the local MP was also the voters in this election. But he did not turn up in Varanasion Thursday to cast his vote. Postal ballots are not permitted in council elections.
In Gonda district 98.92 percent voter’s turnout was recorded while over 97 percent voters exercised their franchise in Pilibhit –Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, and lakhimpur Kheri.
Elected members of the three tier panchyat bodies, urban local bodies, MlAs, MlCs and members of both the houses of parliament constitute the electoral college for the elections to the 36 seats of the state legislative council from the local body’s constituency,.
Minor scuffle among the supporters of the Samajwadi Party candidate and the party rebel candidate occurred in Gorakhpur. Jai Prakash Yadav is the official SP candidate while CP Chand is the rebel candidate who was expelled from the party earlier this week. Supporters of the two candidates clashed at polling booth in Gola development block. Supporters of Jai Prakash Yadav objected to the entry of a newly elected village prdhan Nagendra yadav in the polling booth. Order was restored after the police intervention
Of the total 36 seats eight candidates of the Samajwadi party have already been elected unopposed. For the remaining 28 seats 105 candidates were in the fray. There were total 1 lakh voters in the 28 seats.
According to the Election commission 729 polling booths were set up in 57 districts for the polling. EC sources said barring minor incident in Gorakhpur, polling was peaceful and no untoward incident was reported from any of the 57 districts.
For keeping close watch on the elections, EC had deployed 28 general observers, 11 expenditure observers and 790 micro observers. For maintaining law and order 20 companies of Central para military forces, 30 company of PAC , 2,187 sub inspectors of police, 10,935 constables and 14,580 jawans of home guard and PRD were also deployed. At 293 polling booths EC had made arrangements for the web casting of the polling to prevent poll related irregularities.
The ruling Samajwadi Party desperate to win maximum number of seats ahead of the state assembly election due in 2017, is getting tough challenge in dozen seats. IN 8 seats the BJP candidates are in comfortable position while in two seats BJP has given support to the independent candidates while in two other seats Bahujan Samaj Party is locked in close contest with the Samajwadi party.
Seats where the SP is facing tough challenge are Aligarh-Hathars, Mirzapur-sonbhadra, Bulandsahar-Gautam Buddh Nagar, Varanasi-Chanduli, Pilibhit-shahjahanpur, Muzaffarnagar-Shamli-Saharanpur and Badaun.
Meanwhile the Samajwadi Party has claimed that it will win most of the seats where the polling was held on Thursday. SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary said that as per the reports received from different constituencies, the SP candidates have comfortable lead over their rivals.