Third phase of UP civic polls witnesses 53 pc turnout

The third and the final phase of the Uttar Pradesh urban local body polls in 26 districts of the state witnessed a voter turnout of 53 per cent even as there were some complaints of voters' names being missing and malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The polling was peaceful, an official said.
The previous two phases of polling on November 22 and 26 had recorded a turnout of 52.59 and 49.3 respectively, taking the average of all the three phases to 52.5 per cent, State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal told reporters at the close of polling this evening.
Giving comparative figures, he said the districts going to polls in the third phase had recorded 51.57 per cent in 2012. Likewise, the turnout in the districts figuring in the first and second phases that year was 46.11 and 43.67 per cent respectively.

The overall percentage recorded an improvement from 46.2 per cent in 2012 to 52.5 per cent this time, he said.
Re-polling was held in three booths simultaneously with today's voting, Agarwal said.

Asked about complaints regarding EVMs, he said that 503 units were replaced out of the 32,374 in use across the state.
The election campaign generated a lot of political heat with the ruling BJP leaving nothing to chance. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath criss-crossed the state to woo voters in the name of development, while opposition SP, BSP and Congress campaigns were comparatively low key.
The districts that went to polls today are Saharanpur, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Moradabad, Bareilly, Sambhal, Etah, Firozabad, Kannauj, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Jhansi, Mahoba, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Khiri, Barabanki, Balrampur, Siddharthanagar, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Mau, Chandauli, Jaunpur and Mirzapur.

Counting of votes for all the three phases would be done on December 1 and results will be declared the same day.