Pipraich records highest turnout, Gkp urban lowest

GORAKHPUR: The Pipraich assembly segment of Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency recorded the highest turnout of 52.24% among all Gorakhpur segments in the byelection held on Sunday, district election officials said.

Sahjanwa was the second with 50.07% turnout, Campierganj third with 49.43%, Gorakhpur rural fourth with 45.74% and Gorakhpur urban fifth with 37.76%, they added.The overall polling percentage of 47.45% was 7.21 less then what was reported in the 2014 Lok Sabha election when Yogi Adityanath was elected for fifth time in a row by a margin of 3.12 lakh votes.

A voter turnout of 54.66 % was recorded in the 2014 LS election in Gorakhpur.

Reports of EVMs malfunctioning were received from Khajni, Sahjanwa, Ghosipur and Bhathat. The machines were either replaced or repaired with the help of engineers, officials said. Some voters complained their names were missing. Only four votes were cast in Campierganj’s Kolhu area in Gorakhpur till noon as locals boycotted the election in protest against the lack of development in their wards. They alleged that no road was built in their Vidhan Sabha constituency. However, they agreed to vote after subdivisional magistrate Gajendra Kumar received their memorandum and assured to take up their concerns with the authorities.

Gorakhpur district magistrate Rajeev Rautela, who is the district election officer, and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Satyartha Aniruddh Pankaj visited booths and took stock of polling. The Gorakhpur DM said: “The elections were conducted peacefully at all the booths. Sealed EVMs will be stored back in strong room and counting will be take place on March 14.”

Ten candidates were in the fray from Gorakhpur. For the first time EVMs were incorporated with an equal number of VVPAT machines which displayed the candidate’s name and symbol for seven seconds before a confirmation slip dropped automatically to an attached box.

The new MP elected from Gorakhpur will have a tenure of about a year as general elections are due in 2019. Critical polling booths were monitored from control rooms set up in the DM’s office and webcasting of 50 selected booths was done.