Day gets warmer, polling slowly picks up in UP

Lucknow: After a cold, damp start, polling began to slowly pick up in Uttar Pradesh, where the first phase of the staggered elections were under way Wednesday, with voters coming out of their homes as a faint sun peeped through the clouds.

Till 1 p.m., six hours after polling began at 7 a.m., there was a turnout of 26.8 percent in the 55 assembly constituencies in the eastern part of the state, said Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha.

With the weather improving, balloting would pick up before the end of polling at 5 p.m., Sinha said, confident about the turnout improving as the day progressed.

He said the elections were proceeding peacefully and smoothly with no untoward incident being reported.

In some pockets in Ambedkar Nagar, for instance, the turnout was close to 50 percent. And in Ayodhya, long queues were finally being seen outside polling booths as the day became progressively warmer.

The rain and cold had kept people indoors in most places in the morning. Till 11 a.m., only 13.38 percent of the 1.70 crore electorate had come out to vote. According to Sinha, the voter turnout in the first two hours was estimated between five and six percent as against seven to eight percent witnessed in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.

In the first two hours of polling, for instance, just 150 voters stepped out of their homes in the cold and rainy weather at the Puremoti primary school in Barabanki, barely 35 km from here.

Among the important constituencies are Mahasi and Matera in Bahraich district, Ayodhya in Faizabad, Sitapur, Kushinagar, Mubarakpur in Azamgarh and Gazipur.

With 862 candidates in the first-phase fray, Barabanki has the maximum number at 26 and Mahmoodabad the least with eight.

A massive security force, including about 55,000 central paramilitary troopers and about 10,000 men of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) as well as police personnel, are maintaining law and order at 18,083 polling stations and surrounding areas.

The candidates include 796 men and 65 women.

Officials said 2,123 polling stations are "sensitive" and 3,423 "hugely sensitive".

The last round of the seven-phase elections will be held March 3 and the votes counted March 6.

Prominent among those who are in the fray in this first phase are the sons of two Congress MPs, Jagdambika Pal and Beni Prasad Verma, who is also the union steel minister. While Abhishek Pal is contesting from Basti, Rakesh Verma is from Dariyabad.

This phase is also seen as an acid test for Congress star campaigner Rahul Gandhi who has travelled and campaigned extensively along with Beni Prasad Verma in the area that has a substantial OBC vote of which Verma is regarded as a popular face.