UP records 55.13% voter turnout till 5 pm in phase three of LS polls

Lucknow: A little over 55 per cent polling was recorded till 5 pm in the Lok Sabha election being held for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

Agra witnessed 51.53 per cent polling, Aonla 54.73 per cent, Budaun 52.77 per cent, Bareilly 54.21 per cent, Etah 57.07 per cent, Fatehpur Sikri 54.93 per cent, Firozabad 56.27 per cent, Hathras 53.54 per cent, Mainpuri 55.88 per cent and Sambhal 61.10 per cent, the Election Commission (EC) said.

By 5 pm, 55.13 per cent votes were cast. Voting began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. More than 1.89 crore voters are eligible to vote in these 10 constituencies. With the end of this phase of voting, 26 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats have already gone to polls.

The third phase is important for the family members of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is aiming to retain the Mainpuri seat, which she won in a bypoll following the death of her father-in-law. Akshay Yadav, the son of SP national principal general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav is contesting from Firozabad and Aditya Yadav, the son of SP national general secretary Shivpal Yadav, is making his electoral debut from Budaun.

Early in the day, Akhilesh Yadav, Dimple Yadav, their daughter Aditi Yadav, Ramgopal Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and other family members cast their votes in Etawah's Saifai. BJP candidates S P Singh Baghel and Parmeshwar Lal Saini cast their votes in Agra and Sambhal, respectively.

Speaking to reporters after casting his vote, Ramgopal Yadav exuded confidence that Dimple Yadav would win the Lok Sabha polls with a greater margin compared to the bypolls.

A group of Muslim women near a polling station in Budaun's Sahaswan assembly segment alleged that they were being stopped from casting their vote. They also alleged that the men accompanying them were beaten by police.

District Magistrate Manoj Kumar refuted the charges, saying the people who had already cast their votes were gathering unnecessarily and police had to move them away to maintain law and order.

He said, "Voting is going on peacefully in the district and the effort was to a higher polling percentage than in the last election." In Budaun, residents of Dhoranpur village boycotted the polling for the first three hours, saying politicians had ignored their demand for a road. A sub-divisional magistrate reached the village and persuaded the local people to vote.

There were poll boycotts also in Nagla Jawahar, Neem Kheria and Nagla Umar villages in Firozabad. However, later with the district administration's intervention, the villagers cast their votes.

Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the BJP were preparing to loot booths in Mainpuri. "They are detaining opposition people in police stations," he said without giving details.

He also alleged rigging of votes at some places and said, "Information is coming from some places that the government is using force. It is heard that officers have been deployed outside polling booths." BJP leader Prem Shankar Shakya alleged that some unidentified persons hurled stones at his vehicle in Mainpuri's Kusmara area when he was going to vote along with the party's former district unit chief Pradeep Chauhan and others.

He claimed that his driver was injured in the attack. Superintendent of Police, Vinod Kumar said that action will be taken after a complaint is received.

Samajwadi Party's Budaun candidate Aditya Yadav alleged that the local administration was not allowing party supporters to vote at various booths in Ujhani Sahaswan.

"I have made a complaint in this regard with an EC observer and have given proof of police atrocities. We are only getting assurances," he said, adding that water was poured on an SP agent's polling bag containing voter slips.

Talking to reporters in Sambhal, SP candidate Zia-ur-Rehman Barq alleged that a circle officer doubled up as a BJP worker and snatched bags and voter slips from his party's workers and detained them. He requested the EC to remove the officer from his post immediately.

Uttar Pradesh has the highest 80 parliamentary constituencies among all the states. Polling in the state is spread across all seven phases from April 19 to June 1. The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.