UP Panchayat polls: Around 60% polling recorded

Lucknow: About 60 per cent polling was recorded till 5 pm on Monday for the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh panchayat polls in 20 districts, where 3.48 lakh candidates are in the fray for over 2.23 lakh posts. While Gautam Buddh Nagar recorded the highest polling percentage of 70.20 per cent, Pratapgarh recorded the lowest at 52.12 per cent, the State Election Commission (SEC) said.

Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav did not exercise his franchise in his native Saifai village in Etawah district following request from family members to keep his safety in mind in view of the pandemic. According to family sources, the 81-year-old had never missed voting in any election till now.

"We requested Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) not to come to Saifai to cast his vote this time for the panchayat elections in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he agreed to our request. Netaji is in Delhi," his nephew Dharmendra Yadav said.

BJP MLA from Lambhua in Sultanpur Devmani Dwivedi said he could not cast his vote as his name was not in the voters' list. "Barring me, names of my other family members, including my mother, who is no more, were in the voters' list," Dwivedi said.

Violence was reported in Etah where Praveen Kumar, husband of a village pradhan candidate, Suman Yadav, from Bhagipur was shot at and injured by unidentified assailants on Sunday night.

SHO of Kotwali police station, Subhash Katheria, said the incident took place near Shikohabad road.

Polling started at 7 am and went on till 6 pm on Monday. Over 3.23 crore voters were eligible to exercise their franchise.

In the second of the four-phase election, polling is being held in Lucknow, Varanasi, Amroha, Azamgarh, Etawah, Etah, Kannauj, Gonda, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Budaun, Baghpat, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Mainpuri, Maharajganj, Lakhimpur Kheri, Lalitpur and Sultanpur.