Rural Maha fares better, city trails in voting %age

Mumbai, which voted for the 288 assembly seats, registered around 50 per cent voting, while the state registered around 60.46 per cent voting in the election. In the last assembly election in 2014, the state had recorded 63.38 per cent voter turnout.

As per expectations, Mumbai city registered the lowest voting percentage of 48.63 per cent in the state. The Mumbai suburban district registered 51.17 per cent. The highest turnout was reported in Karveer constituency in Kolhapur at 83.20 per cent, while the lowest turnout was recorded in South Mumbai's upmarket Colaba area at 40.20 per cent. In 2014 assembly election, Colaba voting percentage was 46.20 per cent. Rural areas of the state fared better, with voters there showing more enthusiasm than their urban counterparts. Polling began at 7 am and ended at 6 pm. "The elections held on Monday saw a voter turnout of 60.46 per cent till the closing hour of 6 pm.The final figure of polling could increase and it will be available on Tuesday," said Baldev Singh, chief election officer of the state. A total 5,42,43,974 voters of 8,97,22,019 registered their votes.

Voting in metros less

Thane too witnessed a lower voting percentage and even lower than Mumbai's average of 49.9 per cent. The voting percentage in Thane is 47.91. Pune registered 57.74 percent, Nashik 59.44 and Nagpur 57.44 per cent. Pune, Nashik and Nagpur fared well as compared to Mumbai and Thane.

Rural votes in large numbers

If we go by the district-wise voting percentage, almost every district has voted in large numbers. The average voting percentage of every district is above 60 per cent. Kolhapur stood first in the list with highest voting percentage at 73.62 per cent. Aurangabad, Hingoli and Dhule registered the second-highest voting percentage of more than 68 percent.

A galaxy of bigwigs from politics, Bollywood and India Inc joined the young and old in exercising their franchise in this festival of democracy.

Prominent voters included RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, CM Fadnavis, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, former President Pratibha Patil and MNS chief Raj Thackeray.

A nonagenarian was the cynosure of all eyes as he accompanied union minister Smriti Irani outside a polling booth in Mumbai. “Today’s hero is Khanna saheb, who served in the army. At 93, he came out to vote. It is an inspiration,” Irani said.

In Pune, a 102-year-old man, suffering from a heart ailment, went straight to a polling booth to cast his vote after being discharged from a hospital. Ibrahim Alim Joad, who according to his family, has never missed voting since Independence, consulted his doctors before going to vote. "Modi is doing good work and hence my vote goes to him," he said. The state has 8,98,39,600 voters, including 1,06,76,013 in the age group of 18 to 25 years. Nearly 6.5 lakh polling personnel were deployed at 96,661 polling booths in the state.

The opposition Congress said it filed over 250 complaints of poll procedure violations with the EC, including one for Ramtek segment where it said if the EVM button was pressed in favour of Congress candidate, the vote was shown to be going to the BJP nominee.

In Gadchiroli, a 45-year-old teacher posted on election duty died in hospital after fainting while walking towards the voting booth on Monday morning, an official said.