By IANS,
Lucknow : Thousands of voters queued up outside polling booths in western Uttar Pradesh Tuesday for the sixth and penultimate round of the assembly elections being held in 68 assembly constituencies across 13 districts.
About 28 percent of the 2.11 voters had cast their franchise by noon, officials said.
Polling for the elections, which sees Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhury among more than 1,000 candidates testing their luck, opened at 7 a.m.
Discussing the first two hours of polling, Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Umesh Sinha told IANS here: “While the overall turnout was estimated at 9.7 percent at 9 a.m. this morning, the highest polling was reported from Hathras where a record 20 percent was witnessed during the first two hours of the poll.”
“Even in other places like Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar, the turnout stood at about 15 percent while Agra recorded nine percent,” he said.
While the elections were proceeding peacefully, there were some glitches as well. Key Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal’s name was missing from the voters list in Ghaziabad.
The electoral exercise is being held at 21,317 polling stations spread across the districts of Saharanpur, Prabudh Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Panchseel Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mahamaya Nagar, Mathura and Agra.
Though the belt is notorious for its feudal traditions, this phase has 9,391,585 women listed as voters, the highest, besides 712 eunuchs.
The impact of the Congress-RLD combine on the Jat and the Muslim voters, who dominate large parts of the 13 districts, will be tested. While the Samajwadi Party (SP) is also vying desperately for the Muslim vote, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is trying hard to retain its chunk of 35 seats won in 2007.
Four of the 13 districts witnessing the poll have a substantial Muslim population ranging between 25-39 percent, while the remaining nine districts have 18-22 percent Muslims.
Counting of votes for this high stakes battle will done March 6.