High polling in Punjab and Uttarakhand

A sizable majority of eligible voters in the two northern states of Punjab and Uttarakhand journeyed to their polling booths on Monday to choose their next legislative assemblies. The counting of votes is on March 6, after three other elections also get over.

It was 70 per cent voting by Uttarakhand's 6.3-million electorate, a jump from 60 per cent in 2007, for 70 assembly seats. This third state election for the former hill districts of Uttar Pradesh was, by and large, peaceful.

As for Punjab, nearly four in every five of the 17.6-million eligible voters exercised their right, about 77 per cent against 76 per cent last time. They elect a 117-member assembly. Polling began on a dull note but the momentum picked up. Only a few minor incidents disturbed the peaceful polling, although close to half the 19,841 poll booths had been declared either 'sensitve' or 'hypersensitive'..

In both states, there was heavy deployment of security forces, well-monitored by the central and state election authorities. They'd nabbed, from campaign opening till yesterday, as much as Rs 33.6 crore in unaccounted cash, rivers of illicit and other liquor and drugs, too. A crakdown on arms, licensed and otherwise, had eben instituted.

Incumbent and former chief ministers are in the fray in both states, beside a number of prominent state personalities. In Uttarakhand, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the main opposition Congress party are contesting all 70 seats; 788 candidates were on the ballot on Monday. In Punjab, the ruling Akali Dal-BJP alliance are contesting all the seats, as is the Congress. In neither state has an incumbent government been returned to power in recent memory — never in Uttarakhand's 12-odd years as a state and not for close to five decades in Punjab.