Uttarakhand records 68% voting

Nearly 30,000 security personnel being deployed at 10,685 booths

 

Over 68 per cent of the electorate in Uttarakhand  Elections 2017 voted on Wednesday, which is two per cent more than the last Assembly polls, to decide the fate of 628 candidates in 69 out of the total 70 seats.

The turnout in the 2012 Assembly polls was around 66 per cent.

The State Election Office here said over 68 per cent of the electorate cast their votes by 5 pm but many people were still standing in the queues outside the booths, implying that the poll percentage may go up by the time the final figures are collated.

Poll schedule for the lone Karnaprayag seat in Chamoli district had to be revised to March 9 due to the death of BSP candidate Kuldeep Singh Kanwasi in a road accident on Sunday last.

Polling took place amid tight security, with nearly 30,000 security personnel being deployed at 10,685 booths, of which 460 were in snowbound areas.

For the first time, Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines were used in three constituencies including BHEL Ranipur, Dharampur and Rudrapur.

In most of the seats, ruling Congress and BJP are locked in a straight contest. However, rebel candidates of both the parties are in the fray as independents in several constituencies and may upset the calculations of the official nominees of their respective parties.

Among those testing their political luck are 12 former Congress MLAs who are in the fray as BJP candidates this time. They include Yashpal Arya (Bajpur), Harak Singh Rawat (Kotdwar), Shailarani Rawat (Kedarnath), Shailendra Mohan Singhal (Jaspur), Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion (Khanpur), Pradeep Batra (Roorkee) and Subodh Uniyal (Narendranagar).

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LIVE: 53% voting recorded in Uttarakhand, 54% in UP till 3 pm

Saharanpur, Bijnore, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri and Badayun to go on polls in UP

3.56 pm: 54.27 per cent voter turnout recorded till 3 pm in Uttar Pradesh.

3.55 pm: 53 per cent voter turnout recorded till 3 pm in Uttarakhand Assembly                 2017" 

3.33 pm: Over 45 per cent voting till 2 pm.

2.25 pm: 40 per cent voter turnout recorded till 1 pm in Uttarakhand ELECTION 2017

2.13 pm: 42.05 per cent voting registered till 1 pm in Uttar Pradesh.

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D-day for Uttarakhand today

On Wednesday, the state will see its Assembly elections after a year-long political instability

 

Only N D Tiwari has given a five-year-long stable government in to Uttarakhand Elections 2017 After Tiwari’s exit, political instability kept haunting the hill state as chief ministers were changed repeatedly by both Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress.

And last year, the instability reached its peak when the Harish Rawat government was dismissed and later reinstated.Uttarakhand assembly elections 2017

On Wednesday, the state will see its Assembly elections after a year-long political instability, making it a day of reckoning. The polling will be held for 69 constituencies after the election for the lone Karanprayag seat was countermanded following the death of Kuldip Singh Kanwasi, a BSP candidate. The polling in Karanprayag will be held on March 9. “Preparations for the polling have already been made,” said an Election Commission official.

The ruling Congress is facing a stiff challenge from BJP in almost all the seats.

In more than 20 seats, the contest is likely to be very close. Even a difference of 100 votes can change dimensions, especially in Assembly seats such as Vikasnagar, Dehradun Cantt, Narendra nagar, Doiwala and Ranikhet, claimed political experts. But hours before the polling, a purported sting operation accusing Rawat of bribing Dan Singh Bhandari, a former BJP MLA, created flutter in the political circles of Uttarakhand.

Bhandari, who quit from BJP and the state Assembly last year, is now contesting on a Congress ticket from Bhimtal constituency in Kumaon region.

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Uttarakhand Elections: The odds of a new chief minister

In the 2007 polls, BJP came out as largest party with 35 seats, while the Congress won 21 seats

 

Amid tight security, the polling for the single-phase Uttarakhand assembly elections 2017 began on Wednesday and the one question in everyone's mind is whether this Himalayan state, which was carved out from the gigantic Uttar Pradesh in 2000, is going to have a new chief minister or the incumbent supremacy will continue.

The rebel party leaders, certainly, hold the key in the outcome in the hilly state where two prominent parties – the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the Congress — are trying every bit to seek the favour of every section of voters. Both parties expelled many leaders ahead of the elections, who then walked into the rival camps. While the BJP has fielded candidates, who have served the Congress, from 13 seats, the grand old party is trying its luck with seven erstwhile-BJP MLAs.

In the last leg of the election campaign, the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi asked to waive off loans worth crores which were taken by some 50 rich families, instead of an initiative against black money as Prime Minister Narendra Modi projected.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi, in his last rally in Pithoragarh, tried to strike an emotional chord where the majority of people are in the Army and other security forces. Starting from OROP and surgical strike, he went on to announce many schemes for the betterment of Army personnel.

Reports of the cold war between Uttarakhand Elections 2017 Chief Minister Harish Rawat and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kishore Upadhyay emerged as the polls drew near. Besides fighting with the BJP, Harish Rawat is also combating for power within the state unit of his party.

The results of the polls will be out on March 11, 2017.

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Win at all costs? PM Modi's reforms meet realpolitik in Uttar Pradesh polls

Maurya, BJP UP President, said his party is moving towards cleaner and transparent politics

Elections 2017 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while.

"At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside.

Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away.

Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office.

His bosses are not concerned.

An official at the prime minister's office referred questions about Maurya and his criminal cases to the BJP, where an aide to party president and Modi confidant Amit Shah said there was no problem.

The charges are related to Maurya protesting on behalf of Hindu causes, said the aide, and anyone who does so "is not a criminal in the party's eyes."

"Slowly," Maurya told Reuters, "the BJP will be moving towards a direction where it will only have politicians who are absolutely clean and have no cases of corruption against them." (Read More)