59 pc turnout reported in 6th phase

59 pc turnout reported in 6th phase 

Over 59 per cent voters on Tuesday exercised their franchise in the sixth and penultimate phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections for 68 seats spread over 13 districts of the western Jat belt of the state, where the Congress-RLD combine faces a litmus test. While voting was by and large peaceful, election officials in Delhi and Lucknow said "barring minor incidents, polling process was peacefully over at 5 PM." In Delhi, an election official said, "The turnout shows an increase of around 29 per cent as compared to the previous assembly polls in 2007." The last assembly polls in these districts had recorded a turnout of 46.58 per cent. In the sixth phase of polling, Saharanpur district recorded a maximum turnout of 64.7 per cent followed by Mathura district which recorded a polling percentage of 63.3 per cent, Deputy Election Commissioner Vinod Zutshi said. The fate of 1,103 candidates, including 86 women, will be decided in today's polls. Voters in village Hussain Malikpur under Behat assembly constituency in Saharanpur district boycotted the poll and no vote was polled at polling booth number 106, Zutshi said, adding that the villagers were protesting against inadequate drainage of water in the area. Zutshi said there was one case of possible repoll due to irregularities in the use of electronic voting machines in Ghaziabad. This was in Polling Station 67 at SR Public School in Ghaziabad where poll officials included the mock poll votes in the total votes polled. "This calls for a possible repoll after scrutiny," he said. Police used mild force to disperse a local BSP leader and his supporters who created a ruckus at a polling centre at Singhani gate area in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of Delhi. They were protesting against the absence of booth level officers to distribute voter slips. Similarly, in Agra, people were agitated over alleged irregularities at a centre at Ahmadia Hameedia college in Mantola. In Bhatta Parsaul, which was the centre of the land acquisition row, farmers were seen in large numbers coming out to vote. Their leader Manvir Singh Tevatia, who had spearheaded the farmers' agitation, is fighting elections from jail. The area falls under the Jewar Assembly seat. Congress has fielded Dhirendra Singh from Jewar. He was the man on whose bike Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi had reached Bhatta Parsaul last year. In Chief Minister Mayawati's native Badalpur village, farmers had lined up to cast their vote even before the polling began. BSP fielded Satvir Gujjar, the sitting MLA, wwho is piited against Samir Bhatti of Congress. Bhatti had once served as MLA from Dadri and his father Mahinder Singh Bhatti represented the seat twice. BJP has fielded Nawab Singh Nagar, who was twice elected MLA from the seat. Samajwadi Party has fielded Raj Kumar Bhatti.