Polling for 11 MLC seats held amid Covid protocol
LUCKNOW: Over 55% voters exercised their franchise in the polling for biennial elections to 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, including six teachers’ and five graduate constituency seats, in the state on Tuesday.
Teachers’ constituency seats witnessed higher polling across the state than graduate constituency seats, election commission (EC) data showed.
At 5 pm, the official close of voting time, the fate of 199 candidates was sealed in ballot boxes till December 3 when counting will take place.
According to data released by the election commission, of the 1, 269, 817 voters for five graduate seats and 2, 06, 335 voters for six teachers’ seats, 55.47 per cent voters turned up to cast their vote with Gorakhpur-Faizabad division teachers’ constituency witnessing maximum 73.94 per cent turnout. Lucknow Division Graduate Constituency witnessed minimum turnout as according to the election commission data, only 36.74 percent voters turned up to vote for their candidates.
The election commission had ordered that all voters will be thermal scanned before they are allowed to vote.
The Election Commission had also allotted a maximum of 1,000 voters in each polling booth while ensuring availability of PPE kits, face masks and face shields at all the 2621 polling centres, including 1808 centers for graduate polls and 813 for teachers’ constituency elections.
In the state capital over 60,000 voters cast their votes to seal the fate of around 35 candidates who were in fray from two constituencies for the post of legislative council member. Of the total candidates in fray, 11 candidates are from teachers’ constituency and 24 from graduates.
“We inspected many polling stations to check the polling and also to ensure that social distancing is being strictly followed,” said Abhishek Prakash, district magistrate while inspecting polling booth at Girdhari Singh Inter College in Saadatganj area.
Of the 199 candidates in fray, majority of them contested as independents and gave sleepless night s to candidates of the established political parties.
Till the last moment, candidates of major political parties were seen trying to win the independents over with one of them publicly committing his support to the BJP candidate from Lucknow just ahead of the polls.