By IANS,
Jammu : Over 40 percent of the electors cast their votes Thursday in Jammu and Kashmir’s predominantly mountainous Udhampur parliamentary constituency amid tight security, officials said.
The voting ended peacefully in the constituency some segments of which are close to the border with Pakistan and are prone to militant attacks.
“There was no untoward incident across the constituency (during the voting),” a poll official said.
The final turnout figure was still being estimated as officials were busy gathering data from some polling stations located in remote border areas from here.
Spread over six districts in the Jammu division of the state, Udhampur constituency has 1,362,382 voters. There are 14 candidates in the fray with the contest primarily between sitting MP Lal Singh of the Congress and his BJP rival Nirmal Singh.
After low turnout in the morning, voting percentage picked up in some areas of the constituency. Yet in many of the polling stations, security personnel out numbered the voters even after hours of polling for the second phase.
In the first phase, 49.6 percent turnout was recorded in the Jammu parliamentary constituency.