PANCHKULA, Sept 5: Even as the district recorded just 50 per cent voting, in Panchkula town merely 45 per cent exercised their right to franchise.Most of the polling centres in the district wore a deserted look in the morning. However, voting gained momentum around 11 a.m. The township recorded highest polling at the booth nos. 190, 195 and 140. Barwala area recorded the highest voting percentage - 65 per cent.However, not everyone was happy with the poll arrangements. Some voters in the township complained that despite possessing voter identity card they were not allowed to cast their vote because their names were not there in the voters list. Virender Sidhu and his wife Charanjit Kaur of Sector 12 said that they had got their identity cards made in 1995 and have been exercising their franchise ever since. To their surprise they found that their names were missing from the list this time. Similar complaints were received from other residents of the same sector.Morni recorded voter poor turnout, this amidst rumours that the people of the area would boycott elections. When Newsline visited a polling station in Buri village, about 5 km from Morni, around 10:30 a.m., out of a total of 632 only 41 votes had been cast.However, the villagers claimed that despite boycott call they were under no pressure as to not to cast their vote. In Booth No 233 of Morni Hills voting was slow in the morning but picked up during the day. In Booth No 247 of Shergujjran village not a single vote had been caste till late in the afternoon and the villagers said that this was because of the resentment prevailing in the area as no welfare activities had been undertaken in the area.There were rumours that currency notes were distributed amongst those voters who exercised their franchise in Surajpur and that a police party was sent but nothing no such activity was going on.At the time of this report was filed, information from Morni side was still awaited because due to bad weather, information centre had lost in touch with some polling centres and the information was expected to arrive after midnight.voters turn out while in the district a total of 50 percent polling was recorded as per the information available from the information centre.
