High voter enthusiasm marked the sixth phase of polling on Thursday covering 117 constituencies spread across 11 States and the Union Territory of Puducherry, as the race to the Lok Sabha crossed the half—way mark with stakes high for the Congress and BJP.
Barring the killing of a policeman in Assam’s Kokrajhar district in BSF firing to ward off mobs trying to capture a booth and a suspected Maoist attack on a poll team in Jharkhand, the polling was by and large peaceful.
The turnout today in all the 11 states and 1 union territory, iwas higher than the previous Lok Sabha elections in 2009, in sync with the trend witnessed in the five earlier phases this time.
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While the highest turnout of 83 per cent was recorded in the lone seat of Puducherry followed by West Bengal (82 per cent for six seats) and 73 per cent for all the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu which saw a single—phased polling.
Only two states —Rajasthan (59.2 per cent for five seats) and Maharashtra (55.33 per cent for 19 seats) — registered below 60 % turnout.
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Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag constituency, where PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is in the fray, recorded the lowest turnout of 28 percent today but it was still higher than the 26.9 per cent recorded five years ago.
About 18 crore voters were eligible in the sixth phase to exercise their franchise to decide the electoral fate of nearly 2100 candidates including political heavyweights such as External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid (Congress) who is in fray from Farrukhabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh state, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav contesting from Mainpuri also in UP, leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj (BJP) in Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, her party colleague Shahnawaz Hussain in Bhagalpur in Bihar and President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit in Jangipur in West Bengal.
After Thursday's polling, voting in 347, or close to two third, of the total of 543 Lok Sabha seats are over, with 216 seats left in the remaining three of the total of nine phases of the elections.
Second biggest phase
Thursday's was the second biggest phase of the staggered elections after the fourth phase held on April 17, which covered 121 seats.
BJP and Congress are squared off in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh but the politically most important part of today’s polling was the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu where BJP and a cluster of smaller regional parties have firmed up a rainbow alliance projected by opinion polls as having a realistic chance of bagging six to seven seats.