64.4% turnout in Ph-3, stray incidents of violence in West Bengal

Animesh Singh

New Delhi, May 7

A turnout of 64.40 per cent was recorded today in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread across 11 states with stray incidents of violence being witnessed in West Bengal.

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Assam, where polling was held on four seats, recorded the highest turnout at 81.61 per cent, followed by West Bengal at 75.79 per cent and Goa at 75.20 per cent. Uttar Pradesh, which saw polling on 10 seats, witnessed the lowest turnout at 57.34 per cent while Bihar saw 58.18 per cent and Gujarat 58.98 per cent, according to the figures released by the Election Commission at 11.40 pm.

A total of 1,331 candidates were in the fray in the third phase that saw conclusion of the electoral process in Gujarat, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Goa. In all, the polling is now over for 283 seats in 16 states and four union territories.

Sporadic incidents of violence marred the polling in four constituencies of West Bengal as Trinamool Congress, BJP and Congress-CPM workers clashed with each other in various parts of Murshidabad and Jangipur. The TMC, BJP, and the Congress-CPM alliance lodged separate complaints related to poll violence, voter intimidation and assaults on poll agents. The Election Commission received 182 complaints, most of which were from Murshidabad and Jangipur constituencies. An incident of firing was also reported near a polling booth 50 votes. The collector inquired about it and the news turned out to be fake,” said Rajan.

The fourth phase of polling will take place on May 13 across 96 seats in 10 states, including on all 25 and 17 seats of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, respectively.

With this, voting has been completed in 20 states and UTs and 282 seats out of 543. The overall voting percentage in the first and second phases was 66.14 per cent and 66.71 per cent, respectively.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were among those who exercised their franchise in Gujarat, where elections were held in 25 seats. While PM Modi cast his vote at a polling booth in Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, Shah voted at a polling booth in Ahmedabad. Shah (Gandhinagar) is among the bigwigs in the fray along with Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).

The stakes are high for the BJP in this round as it had won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, in the last election.

In Uttar Pradesh, where several members of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family are contesting, party chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the BJP workers were trying to “loot booths” in Mainpuri and people from opposition parties were being detained in police stations.

Yadav cast his vote in Saifai (Etawah) in Mainpuri constituency where his wife and sitting MP Dimple Yadav is contesting. Sporadic incidents of violence marred the polling in the four constituencies in West Bengal as TMC, BJP and Congress-CPM workers clashed with each other in various parts of Murshidabad and Jangipur seats.

According to state election officials, Murshidabad registered the highest voter turnout of 76.49 per cent, followed by Maldaha Dakshin (73.68 per cent), Maldaha Uttar (73.30 per cent) and Jangipur (72.13 per cent). (With PTI inputs)