One person was killed when the police opened fire outside a polling booth in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district to prevent booth capturing.

The highest turnout of 81.28 per cent was registered for the six seats in West Bengal, which the Trinamool Congress is trying to wrest from the Left Front, followed by 76 per cent in Seemandhra, where voters chose 25 representatives to the Lok Sabha and 175 members for the proposed Assembly simultaneously.

Bihar (seven seats) and Uttar Pradesh (15 seats) recorded impressive voter turnouts of 58 per cent and 55.52 per cent, respectively.

After today’s polling, voting has been completed in 502 of the total of 543 constituencies and the remaining 41 constituencies will go to the polls in the last round on May 12.

The talking point today was Amethi (55.2 per cent turnout) in Uttar Pradesh, where Rahul Gandhi is contesting for the third time in a row. Rahul, who has represented the seat since 2004, for the first time, toured polling booths in Amethi on the voting day, apparently in face of a tough challenge posed by his rivals Smriti Irani of the BJP and Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Aadmi Party. Rahul’s cousin and BJP’s Varun Gandhi is in the fray from the neighbouring Sultanpur constituency, which recorded 57.2 per cent turnout today.

Barring sporadic clashes between workers of the YSR Congress Party and the TDP and alleged attacks on policemen in Rayalaseema districts, polling has been largely peaceful for the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Seemandhra. — Agencies