UP polls: 16 pc polling till 1000 hrs in fifth phase
TNN Bureau. Updated: 2/27/2017 12:33:32 PM
National
Lucknow, Feb 27: An estimated 16 per cent of the 1 point 81 crore voters in 51 Assembly constituencies covering 11 districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh today exercised their franchise till 1000 hrs in fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Election Commission officials claimed that the polling was peaceful and till 0900 hrs, it was 10.78 per cent which rose to around 16 per cent till 1000 hrs. Sources said that the polling was incident free till now and long queues were witnessed at several polling stations, particularly on the Indo-Nepal bordering districts of Balrampur, Sidharthnagar and Bahriach. Around 2 lakh policemen have been deployed for the elections, including around 200 companies of Central forces. Voters in Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya and Basti were seen reaching polling booths before 0700 hrs. The voting will continue till 1700hrs. However, a report from Bahriach said that voting was delayed by an hour in at least six booths of the district due to malfunctioning of the electronic voting machines. The electorate are expected to exercise their franchise at 18,822 polling booths of which 2,351 are hyper- sensitive. The fate of 607 candidates, including 40 women, will be sealed in EVMS. The fifth phase will be a litmus test for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance as they had won around 80 per cent of the seats in the 2012 elections. In 2012, the SP won 37, BSP-03, BJP-05, Congress -05 and Peace Party-02 of the seats. According to Election Commission, Sant Kabirnagar district polled the lowest of 7.67 per cent of votes in the first two hours till 0900 hrs while the highest was witnessed in Shravasti district of 12.85 per cent. The polling percentage in the 11 districts at 0900 hrs was Ambedkar Nagar- 10.15 per cent, Amethi, -12.25 er cent, Bahriach- 12.50 per cent, Balrampur- 8.25 per cent, Basti- 11.17 per cent, Faizabad- 12.08 per cent, Gonda- 11.29 per cent, Sant Kabirnagar - 7.67 per cent, Shravasti- 12.85, Sidharthnagar-9.04 per cent and Sultanpur- 10.10 per cent.