Moderate to high turnout in 5th phase of LS poll, halfway mark

Moderate to high turnout today marked the polling in the fifth and biggest round of Lok Sabha elections covering 121 seats across 12 states amidst Maoist violence in Jharkhand where rebels injured four CRPF jawans, blew up a railway track and exploded bombs.
The highest turnout of 78.89 per cent was in the four constituencies in West Bengal, which has a total of 39 seats, while the lowest was recorded in Madhya Pradesh at 54 per cent.
In the key battleground state of Karnataka, where polling was held in the all the 28 seats today, the voting percentage was 66 per cent and in the 11 seats of Uttar Pradesh, electorally the most important state, the turnout was 62.52 per cent.

A good show for Congress in Karnataka could help it to check BJP's perceived surge nationally. In the previous Lok Sabha poll in the state, BJP had won 18 seats in the state but is struggling this time.
Congress had defeated BJP in last year's state assembly polls, bringing to an end the saffron party's only power centre in southern India.
Bangalore watched one of the keenly contested seats in the state where Congress party candidate Nandan Nilekani is pitted against BJP veteran Ananth Kumar.
Polling in another important, Maharashtra, which has a total of 48 seats, 19 constituencies which went to poll today saw a turnout of 61.7 per cent.

Today's polling decided the fate of 358 candidates, including Union Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and former chief minister Ashok Chavan (both Congress) and senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde in Maharashtra.