UP civic elections: Over 50% cast votes in 1st phase of polling
Lucknow: The first phase of the Urban Local Bodies polls in Uttar Pradesh was completed on Thursday, amid reports of minor clashes between political party supporters, missing names in the voter’s list, and technical snags in some Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). However, the voting process was mostly peaceful with a voter turnout of over 50 per cent recorded till 6 pm.
According to the State Election Commission (SEC), Shamli district recorded a polling percentage of 51.67, Shravasti 50.57, and Maharajganj 50.92. Varanasi recorded a polling percentage of 32.7 and Prayagraj 24.31 till 3 pm.
Polling was brisk in rural areas which recorded over 60 per cent of polling while it was slow in the cities.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath used his right in Gorakhpur and was among the
first to cast his vote in the morning.
After casting his vote, CM Yogi tweeted: “Voting is our right as well as our main duty” and urged everyone to vote to make the “municipal body more empowered.”
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BSP national president Mayawati also cast their votes in Lucknow while Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya used his franchise right in Prayagraj.
In a shocking development, SDM Virendra Kumar Mittal died of a heart attack during election duty in Mainpuri. Mittal was the election officer of Nagar Panchayat Jyoti Khudia and was posted as Additional Deputy Collector at the Collectorate.
The first phase of voting was held in 37 districts of Uttar Pradesh, and over 2.40 crore people were eligible to vote to elect 7,593 representatives, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators out of the total 44,232 aspirants, the SEC said. The districts where mayoral elections were completed in the first phase are Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi.
However, some stray incidents of clashes were also reported in some places. In Amroha district, the councillor candidate of Ward No. 14 of Hassanpur Municipality, Madhusudan, was brutally attacked on Wednesday night and succumbed to his injuries on Thursday afternoon.
In Gajraula, also in the Amroha district, a ruckus was reported at some sensitive booths, and Muslim voters and BJP workers engaged in brick batting.
In Maharajganj, supporters of a BJP and a Congress candidate clashed, and in a separate incident, two people were arrested for alleged bogus voting in the Orai tehsil campus in Jalaun.
Voting was temporarily halted at a polling station in Moradabad due to a technical snag in an EVM, which temporarily stalled the polling process.
