Page 17 - 15MAY2019E

general elections
election 2018

increase,” Chief Electoral Officer L Khiangte said after democratic country,” the minister said.
the end of the polling. Voters queued up outside polling booths in Asan-
The polling began at 7 am and ended at 4 pm. As sol’s Jemua village complained that there were no
per the instruction of the Election Commission vot- central forces deployed at the booths and they feared
ers, who entered polling stations before the scheduled to cast their votes. Babul Supriyo also engaged in a bit-
time would be allowed to vote. The voting passed off ter war of words with Trinamool Congress agents at a
peacefully, the CEO said. An FIR was lodged against a polling booth where the two sides argued and hurled
polling personnel at a booth in Hussainabad in Pala- abuses at each other. Trinamool Congress, too, has
mu constituency when it was found during webcast-
ing about his inconsistent behaviour. The officer con-
cerned was immediately replaced by another polling a total of 58.92% of the
personnel from the reserve, he said. The CEO said
some EVMs were immediately replaced after mal- 87.74 lakh electorate cast
functioning was reported.
Inspector General of Police (Operation) Ashish
Batra said that not a single disruption of polling was their votes in five lok
reported during the elections for the three constitu-
encies as 40,000 para-military forces and other state sabha constituencies in
police forces were deployed to oversee peaceful poll-
ing. Braving the summer heat, family members of a phase 4 of polling in Bihar.
94-year-old man took him in a cot to cast his vote at
Loharsi in Chatra Lok Sabha constituency. There was the voters exercised their
no incident of violence anywhere in the three Lok
Sabha constituencies during the day, the police said. franchise on 8,834 polling
In Kulgam district of Anantnag constituency in Jam-
mu and Kashmir, 10.3 per cent polling was recorded,
amid isolated incidents of stone pelting. This was the stations to decide the fate
second of the three-phase polling in the sensitive seat.
In Bihar, voting was delayed due to EVM malfunc- of 66 candidates
tioning at three polling stations in Munger, two poll-
ing stations in Darbhanga and three polling stations
in Begusarai, from where CPI’s Kanhaiya Kumar and
Union Minister Giriraj Singh (BJP) are contesting, due moved EC complaining about central forces firing in-
to technical glitches. In Odisha, technical glitches in side a polling booth in Dubrajpur under the Birbhum
EVMs delayed polling in 60 booths, but it resumed Lok Sabha constituency.
after the snags were rectified, an official said. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath was
Election to 542 Lok Sabha seats is being conducted among the early ones to cast his vote in the fourth
in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. Election phase for the Lok Sabha polls in the state’s Chhind-
in Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu has been can- wara seat, where his son Nakul Nath is the Congress’
celled following excess use of money power. Results candidate. The chief minister along with his wife, son
will be declared on May 23. and daughter-in-law arrived at a polling booth in Shi-
A BJP delegation of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Vijay kapur area to exercise their franchise. Power supply
Goel and Anil Baluni met the Election Commission tripped briefly when the chief minister and his fam-
(EC) on April 29 to complain about poll-related vio- ily members were inside the polling booth, election
lence in West Bengal. There were reports of clashes micro-observer Narendra Singh Sisodia told PTI.
between Trinamool Congress and BJP workers out- Polling began in the morning in six Lok Sabha seats
side a booth in Barabani in Asansol, following a tiff of the state and by-election to Chhindwara Assembly
between sitting MP and BJP candidate in Asansol, constituency, where the chief minister is in the fray.
Babul Supriyo and polling officials inside the station, The Lok Sabha constituencies of Sidhi, Shahdol,
said an Election Commission source. Babul Supriyo’s Jabalpur, Mandla, Balaghat and Chhindwara are go-
car was also vandalised in the clash. ing to polls in the first phase of general elections in
“I have come here just to see how the polling pro- the central state. A poll official said Nath would not be
cess is underway, but I found that voters are not being able to exercise his democratic right in the Chhind-
allowed to cast their ballots. Our fight is to establish wara Assembly bypoll as he is a registered voter from
democracy... It is shameful that I am saying this in a Saunsar Assembly seat. Barring the Naxal-affected

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