Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002
Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002 |
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Polling was brisk in Parliament House as well as all the State capitals with 70 per cent of electors having cast their votes during the first two hours, the Returning Officer, R.C. Tripati, said. Except for a glitch in Pondicherry, polling progressed and ended smoothly across the nation in a contest that saw A.P.J Abdul Kalam pitted against Lakshmi Sahgal. Ballotting in Pondicherry was delayed by about three hours as Legislators and mediapersons protested against denial of entry into the polling premises. Polling began at 10 a.m. at Parliament House and the State capitals, including the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi, Cabinet ministers and Opposition leaders were among the 300-odd Members of Parliament who cast their votes during the first two hours of polling in the capital. Counting will be taken up on July 18. Dr. Kalam is the National Democratic Alliance nominee, while Capt. Sahgal has been chosen by the Left parties. Though Dr. Kalam's victory is a foregone conclusion, Capt. Sahgal found some solid support in Uttaranchal. A report from Dehra Dun, quoted the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal MLA, Kashi Singh Airy, as saying that Capt. Sahgal's being a freedom fighter and member of the Azad Hind Fauj was one of the major reasons to support her. All 70 members of the Delhi Assembly exercised their franchise on a day coinciding with the opening of the week-long monsoon session of the House. The Speaker, Prem Singh, was the first to cast his ballot while the Janata Dal(Secular) MLA, Shoaib Iqbal, was the last to vote at 3.10 p.m. Barring one, all the elected members of the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly exercised their franchise. The Speaker, Sriniwas Tiwari, and the Deputy Chief Minister, Jamuna Devi, were among the two distinguished members who also participated in the country's first Presidential elections in 1952. The BJP MLA, Umesh Shukla, could not turn up because of "domestic reasons". In Lucknow, 397 members of 403 cast their votes with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, among the first ones. All but two of the 199 members voted in the Rajasthan Assembly. Of the eligible 282 legislators, 280 of them along with three MPs from Maharashtra exercised their franchise in Mumbai. According to state Returning Officer, Anant Kalase, the polling was dull in the beginning. In Gandhinagar, except two, all sitting members of the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha exercised their franchise. In Kolkata, barring two Ministers of the Left Front Government, 292 members of the West Bengal Assembly cast their votes. The Power Minister, Mrinal Banerjee, now in China and the Minister of State for Panchayat, Dhiren Sen, convalescing in hospital, could not vote. In Dehra Dun, polling was conducted at a brisk pace till early afternoon with 62 MLAs having cast their votes by 1 p.m. A report from Raipur said that all 90 legislators in Chhattisgarh exercised their franchise. The Speaker, Rajendra Prasad Shukla, was the first to cast his vote. Later, the Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi, his Cabinet colleagues and legislators belonging to the ruling Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party cast their ballots. Displaying true grit, the CPI(M) Legislator, Sushil Biswas, arrived at the West Bengal Assembly in an ambulance to exercise his franchise. Ravi Raj, a Pattali Makkal Katchi MLA who had fractured his leg in an accident, came on a wheelchair in Chennai. In Agartala, 60 MLAs of the Tripura Assembly cast their votes. Altogether 57 legislators of the 60-member Arunachal Assembly exercised their franchise at Itanagar. A report from Shillong said that 56 MLAs in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly cast their ballots. All 60 legislators of the Nagaland Assembly exercised their franchise in Kohima. In Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, the Union Minister of State for Railways, Bandaru Dattatreya, and the Assembly Speaker, K Pratibha Bharathi, were among those who exercised their franchise. The four members of the Majlis-Ittehad-ul-Musilmeen along with their party MP decided to stay away. A lone CPI(Marxist-Leninist) member, G Narasiah, also decided to boycott. All 234 MLAs of the Tamil Nadu Assembly and eight MPs, including the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary, Vaiko, currently detained under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act, cast their votes. Mr Vaiko, who had, apart from obtaining permission from the Election Commission, got permission from Madras High Court in view of his arrest, was brought under tight security from the Vellore Central prison. In Thiruvananthapuram, as many as 136 of 140 members of the Kerala Assembly and three MPs, including the senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister, K. Karunakaran, exercised their franchise. All 30 elected members of the Pondicherry Territorial Assembly exercised their franchise. The entire area was cordoned off by police. Even as the countdown began for his pre-determined march to Rashtrapati Bhavan, Dr. Kalam showed no signs of stress and indulged in friendly banter with scribes when he turned up at the Parliament House where voting was on this morning. ``Do you plan to go for a hair cut?'' asked a journalist. ``Of course, I do it once every four months,'' he replied amid laughter. — UNI
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