Maharashtra: In Buldhana, 4% increase in polling percentage over 2014

NAGPUR:

Voters

in

Buldhana

responded positively to the district administration’s calls, leading to an impressive turnout of about 62.50% in the

Lok Sabha

polls held on Thursday.


This was about 4% more than that recorded in 2014, when the constituency had registered 58.66% polling. However, the final numbers would be made available only by Saturday morning, according to district information officer Nilesh Tayade.

Braving scorching heat and humidity, the voters made a beeline at polling

booths

in all the seven assembly constituencies of this westernmost district of Vidarbha. In morning till 9am, the turnout was just 9%, which increased to 20% by the afternoon. It picked up in the evening hours after 3pm, which actually led to the surge in the voting percentage.

Thursday’s polling was the second and last phase in Vidarbha. In Buldhana, fate of all 12 candidates was sealed into the EVM machines. Buldhana has been a Shiv Sena stronghold since last two decades. Though this time it was a straight fight between Shiv Sena’s Prataprao Jadhav and NCP’s Rajendra Shingane, like in 2009, others including VBA’s Baliram Siraskar and BSP’s Abdul Hafeez Abdul Aziz also tried their luck from the constituency.

There were reports of malfunctioning EVMs and VVPATs that led to delay in the process at some centres in the morning. The voting process at booth no. 120 at Shivaji School in Dongaon had to be stopped temporarily stopped as the data of mock polls wasn’t deleted before the actual polling began. According to officials from district administration, the mock polls were conducted before 7am under the presence of Election Commission of India (ECI) employees and representatives of various political parties. However, the data wasn’t erased properly, creating confusion.

After the officials realized that the figures were not matching with the total votes polled, the previous data was deleted. The process resumed only after VVPAT and voting chits were tallied.

At Hingna village in Khamgaon town, the EVM had to be replaced after developing a technical snag, thus delaying the polling there. There were rumours about wrong voting having taken place due to glitches in the EVMs, but those were later cleared.

All major candidates also exercised their fundamental right with their families and friends and posed to the shutterbugs. The youths, particularly the first-timers, were seen taking selfies outside the polling booths while flaunting their inked finger, and uploading them on various social media platforms.

The ECI with its ‘Go vote’ campaign left no stone unturned to encourage people to come out of their homes and cast votes. The ECI had made elaborate arrangements at over 2,000 polling centres. Nearly 10,000 employees of ‘polling party’, who were deployed at various booths, worked hard for smooth conduct of the polls.

Interestingly, with several marriage ceremonies scheduled during the day, many of the brides and grooms made it a point to first cast their vote before tying the nuptial knot.