UP polls: 59.2 percent turnout in 5th phase

At the close of voting on Thursday, 59.2 percent of the electorate in 13 districts had turned up to cast their vote in the fifth phase of polling in UP’s seven phase elections.

As many as 829 candidates were in the fray for the 49 seats spread across 13 districts, with an electorate of 1.56 crore and where 17,267 polling centres were set up.

Once again predominantly rural areas scored over more urban habitations. Thus while Lalitpur recorded a 72 percent turnout, in Kanpur the figure was 54 percent. For 2007, the figures were 54.74 and 40.07 respectively.

In the last Vidhan Sabha elections, the total vote turnout for the 13 districts was 46.72 percent.

The turnout in Kushinagar was 61 percent, Etah 60 percent, Hamirpur 58 percent, Firozabad 61 percent, Auraiyya 58 percent, Jhansi 59 percent, Etawah 57 percent,  Ramabhai Nagar 60 percent and 55 percent in Mainpuri.

With the weather having turned pleasant, the early hours saw brisk voting and by 11 am 23.75 percent votes had been cast. In the next four hours the figure had jumped to 50.16 percent.

Though voting remained incident free, there were reports of scuffles between voters and election officials in Kanpur over missing names in the electoral rolls.

"Every polling booth had at least two paramilitary personnel, two state armed cops plus four homeguards," a top police officer disclosed.

There were also reports of voters boycotting the poll process in Etah, Lalitpur, Jalaun and Hamirpur over development issues.

In this phase, while Uma Bharti was in the fray from Charkhari in Hamirpur district, Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal Yadav was contesting from the family bastion of Jaswant Nagar in Etawah.

Uma Bharti was desperately trying to wean away votes from former BJP leader Kalyan Singh, who was struggling to keep his own stock of Lodhis together under the banner of his Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP). He had even gone to the extent of throwing a challenge to Uma Bharti by fielding a rival member of the caste against her.