Turnout below 60% in 8 of 11 Kanpur-Bundelkhand districts
KANPUR: The voter turnout remained below 60% in eight of the 11 districts of the KanpurBundelkhand region, in the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election on Sunday even as a polling officer’s body was found under mysterious circumstances in Auraiya district.
Lalitpur district recorded the highest polling percentage of 67.38% and Kanpur Nagar district the lowest at 50.76% (till 5pm). Polling was held in 40 assembly constituencies of the region. The BJP had won 35 of the 40 seats in Kanpur-Bundelkhand region in 2017.
The Samajwadi Party alleged that the verified voter paper audit trail (VVPAT) was printing the BJP slip even after pressing the button for the SP symbol in the Bhognipur constituency of Kanpur Dehat. Additional chief electoral officer Brahm Dev Ram Tiwari said the complaint was properly looked into and it has been found baseless.
The SP also claimed that there was no party symbol, the cycle, against the name of the party candidate on an EVM in Farrukhabad.
The Farrukhabad district magistrate was not available for comment on this accusation. The party, however, kept tweeting about the malfunctioning of EVMs and alleged attempts of BJP candidates to intimidate their polling agents at Chibramau
in Kannauj. ADG (Kanpur zone) Bhanu Bhaskar said polling was peaceful throughout the two regions. Nevertheless, a stray incident of violence was reported from Rasoolabad in Kanpur Dehat where the BJP candidate’s convoy was allegedly pelted with stones. Heavy police contingent was rushed to Bairgon nearby and it controlled the situation.
A controversy erupted in Kanpur when women complained near Hudson Memorial School that security personnel were asking them to take off their veil before getting into the polling centre. A video clip that surfaced showed women having heated arguments and refusing.
ACP (Colonelgunj) Tripurari Pandey said the incident did not take place near the polling centre. Police were looking into it, he added.
Just before polling was about to end, two political heavyweights Ajay Kapoor of the Congress and sitting MLA Mahesh Trivedi of the BJP were purportedly placed under house arrest. Both are in the fray for the Kidwai Nagar assembly seat in Kanpur.
Their supporters had clashed in 2017 and the police decided to take no chances this time.
A polling officer Dinesh Kumar’s body was found under mysterious circumstances at Janispur in Auraiya.
He was supposed to be on duty at Haloa polling centre in Dibiyapur, also in Auraiya, but he never showed up in morning.
A Samajwadi Party polling agent Krishna Kant died of a heart attack inside a polling booth in Etawah.
The polling percentage in the respective districts till 5pm was: 54.55% in Farrukhabad, 57.71% in Jhansi (four seats each), 57.55% in Auraiya, 58.48% in Kanpur Dehat, 60.28% in Kannauj, 58.35% in Etawah, 53.84% in Jalaun (all with three seats each), 67.38% in Lalitpur, 57.90% in Hamirpur, 62.02% in Mahoba (each with two seats) and 50.76% in Kanpur Nagar (Kanpur City) having 10 seats. Sunday’s polling decided the electoral fate of UP minister Satish Mahana, his cabinet colleague Neelima Katiyar, Lakhan Singh Rajput and former Kanpur police commissioner Asim Arun in this belt.