By ummid.com, staff reporter,
Malegaon: Despite blistering temperature, Malegaon central dominated by the Muslim population in Dhule Parliamentary constituency, recorded a thumping 54% voter turnout. Burqa clad women came out in a large number in whole of the Dhule constituency to cast their votes when the polling began for 25 of the total 48 constituencies in Maharashtra today morning on April 23.
“Malegaon Central area has witnessed 53% polling”, Presiding Officer Ajay More told ummid.com informing the calculations in Malegaon Outer, Dhule and other parts of the Dhule-Malegaon constituency is still going on. Unofficial figures coming from Malegaon Outer and Dhule assembly segments predict a voting percentage of 35% and 39% respectively.
Dhule-Malegaon parliamentary constituency would elect an MP from open category for the first time since independence. Till the last parliamentary election, the two towns having a good number of Muslim populations were part of the two separate constituencies reserved for Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs).
The other two parliamentary constituencies in Nasik district, Nasik City and Dindori parliamentary constituencies saw 42% and 47% of the total voters coming to the polling booth respectively to exercise their votes. The voter turnout in the neighboring Aurangabad district having 35% Muslim population is 51%. A good number of woman voters were seen in this constituency also.
No untoward incident is reported from any of these constituencies. “The polling was totally peaceful and no untoward incident is reported from any of these places”, police officials informed the press.
While Nehal Ahmad of Third Front, Amrish Patel of Congress and Prataprao Sonawane of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) are locked in a tough battle in Malegaon, Hemant Godse of Maharshtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Sameer Bhujbal of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Datta Gaikwad of Shiv Sena (SS) are fighting each other for the Nashik parliamentary seat.
In Aurangabad, Member of Parliament since last ten years, Chandrakant Khaire of Shiv Sena (SS) is seeking re-election and is pitted against Uttam Singh Pawar of Congress.
A total of 140 seats in 12 states went to poll today on April 23 in the second phase of the Parliamentary Elections. With today’s polling the fates of the contestants in these 140 seats are now locked in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). The first phase of the election was held on April 16. Three more rounds of polling on April 30, May 07 and May 14 are remaining before the counting, which is scheduled for May 16.