New Delhi: Delhi recorded a voter turnout of around 60 per cent for the seven Lok Sabha seats, five percentage points down from the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Delhi chief electoral officer said on Sunday.
The turnout was not as per the poll body's expectations considering the number of campaigns it had undertaken to draw the voters to the polling booth, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said.
Voting recorded till 6 pm was 60 per cent and the figure may slightly go up as polling continued at several places way beyond the deadline.
"In 2014, it was around 65 per cent, but this time it might turn out to be around 61 per cent, which is a disappointment," Singh said.
In Delhi, the Congress, the BJP and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party are in the race for the seven Lok Sabha seats, with former-chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Union Minister Harshvardhan, former Olympian boxer Vijender Singh and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir among key candidates.
Aam Aadmi Party's Malviya Nagar legislator Somnath Bharti alleged that voting machines at three booths were not functioning. Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said 5.5 per cent EVMs were replaced in the morning.
National security, unemployment and demonetisation were among the various issues on which Delhiites exercised their franchise on Sunday.
Age is just a number, says a family member of 111-year-old Bachan Singh, the oldest voter in Delhi who carried a youthful enthusiasm into the polling station in Tilak Nagar here.
Centenarian Bachan Singh and 110-year-old Ram Pyari Sankhwar were the oldest man and woman respectively to cast their vote for the Lok Sabha elections in the national capital Sunday.
For students of Delhi government schools, it was a Sunday well spent at polling booths in the national capital where they volunteered to help disabled and elderly voters to cast their ballot.