A voter turnout of 58.9 per cent was recorded till 6 pm in the 13 Lok Sabha constituencies of Uttar Pradesh where polling was held in the fourth phase of the parliamentary elections on Monday.
The polling commenced at 7 am and concluded at 6 pm.
Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said here on Monday that 58.9 per cent turnout of voters was recorded by 6 pm. He said the voter turnout would marginally increase after final tabulation of the data which would be available by Tuesday morning.
Polling for the by-election to Dadraul Assembly constituency in Shahjahanpur was also held on Monday.
The constituencies where polling was held on Monday included Shahjahanpur, Kheri, Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Hardoi, Misrikh, Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj, Kanpur, Akbarpur and Bahraich. With the conclusion of the fourth phase of polling, 39 of the State’s 80 Lok Sabha constituencies have voted, while polling for the remaining 41 seats will be held in fifth, sixth and seventh phases.
The last phase of polling will be held on June 1.
The voters turnout in 13 Lok Sabha constituencies by 6 pm was 53.24 per cent in Shahjahanpur, 64.73 per cent in Kheri, 64.45 per cent in Dhaurahra, 61.91 per cent in Sitapur, 57.57 per cent in Hardoi, 55.79 per cent in Misrikh, 55.79 per cent in Unnao, 55.40 per cent in Farrukhabad, 56.38 per cent in Etawah, 61 per cent in Kannauj, 53.06 per cent in Kanpur, 57.66 per cent in Akbarpur and 57.45 per cent in Bahraich.
The voter turnout in Dadraul Assembly bypoll was 53.31 per cent.
The CEO said polling in all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies was peaceful and no untoward incident was reported from any place. He said close to 150 complaints were received from 13 constituencies, the maximum 70 complaints from Kannauj, by his office in Lucknow.
He said all the complaints were immediately addressed and resolved. He said the complaints related to electronic voting machine (EVM) malfunction, slow polling process, attempts of fake voting using fake identity. He said till 6 pm 53 ballot units, 53 control units and 201 Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units were replaced.
The CEO said for the free fair and transparent polling the Election Commission of India had made arrangements for webcasting at 14,126 polling booths and it was monitored by the district election officers, chief electoral officer at Lucknow and Election Commission of India at New Delhi. He said arrangements for videography were also made in 5,420 polling booths.
For keeping close watch on the election process, the poll panel had deployed 13 general observers, nine police observers and 17 expenditure observers. Besides these 2,250 sector magistrates 287 zonal magistrates 111 static magistrates and 2,920 micro observers were also deployed.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is the most high-profile candidate in the fourth phase election in UP. Pitted against Yadav in Kannauj is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s incumbent Member of Parliament from Kannauj, Subrat Pathak. In 2019, Pathak had defeated Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple in Kannauj in a close contest.
In Kannauj, Akhilesh is contesting to reclaim his family legacy as BJP’s Subrat Pathak tries to repeat his 2019 win. The Kannauj constituency has been considered a stronghold of the SP since 1998, but it witnessed a significant shift in the 2019 election when BJP’s Subrat Pathak wrested this Lok Sabha seat from the SP. The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Imran Bin Zafar. Subrat Pathak has been a consistent contender for the BJP, having contested the Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj since 2009.
The BJP stormed the SP citadel in 2019 when Subrat Pathak defeated the then-sitting MP Dimple Yadav with a margin of 12,353 votes. Subrat Pathak polled 5,63,087 votes (49.4 per cent) against 5,50,734 votes (48.3 per cent) secured by Dimple Yadav. This victory marked the end of the SP’s seven consecutive undefeated electoral battles in the constituency.
Another keenly watched seat in this phase of polls is Kheri, from where Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni, whose son is an accused in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, is eyeing a hat-trick. There are 130 candidates in the fray in these parliamentary constituencies.
