Peaceful voting with “proper COVID protocols” was held in 165 Assembly constituencies of Goa, Uttarakhand and phase two of Uttar Pradesh elections, the Election Commission said on Monday.
Voter turnout in the 55 Assembly constituencies of second phase of the U.P. polls was 60.44% as of 5 p.m., the EC said. In Goa, the single-phase polling for the 40-seat Assembly saw a voter turnout of 78.94 %, excluding the postal ballots, according to election authorities.
“The final voter turnout figures, which is expected to cross 80%, will come in only after the postal ballots are taken into account,” said Goa Chief Electoral Officer Kunal. The State had recorded an 82.56% turnout during the 2017 elections.
In Uttarakhand, turnout for the 70-seat Assembly elections was around 62.5%, according to a statement by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office. In 2017, the Uttarakhand polls had seen 64.72% turnout.
In U.P., the 55 seats that went to polls are mostly located in the Rohilkhand region with a substantial population of Muslims, above the State average of 19.5%. This was most relevant in Rampur, where senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam face a challenge from the erstwhile Nawab family, and Saharanpur, where the SP hopes to make new gains with the inclusion of local Muslim stalwart Imran Masood. Of these 55 seats, the BJP had won most, 38, in 2017 but it was still lower than its figure of near clean sweep of the first phase last time. The SP did reasonably better here, winning 15.
In Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s constituency Sanquelim saw the highest voter turnout at 89.64% — a jump of nearly five percentage points since the 2017 Assembly election.
The lowest turnout (70.2%) was recorded in the Benaulim constituency, said Mr. Kunal, adding that the 19 seats in North Goa recorded a turnout of 79.8% while the 21 Assembly seats in South Goa witnessed a voter turnout of 78.15%.
The State witnessed a fierce multi-cornered contest, with the BJP under CM Pramod Sawant contesting all 40 Assembly seats for the first time. Ranged against the saffron party is the Congress and its ally, the Vijai Sardesai-led Goa Forward Party (GFP) which are contesting on 37 and three seats respectively. Also in the fray is the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is fighting all the seats and the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, which has tied up with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).
In Uttarakhand, the incumbent BJP faced off with the Congress, with Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami leading the campaign.
The ECI said polling, which continued till 6 p.m., was conducted successfully in 36,823 polling stations spread across the three States. In total, 2.95 crore electors, including 5 lakh first-time electors and 2.19 lakh persons with disability, were eligible to cast their votes.
The EC said since the day the polls were notified till Monday, a total of ₹224.71 crore of seizures were made in U.P., Uttarakhand and Goa. In all the five states where elections are being held — U.P., Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab — seizures of — 771.25 crore had been made so far.
