Polling doesn146;t pick up, 46 per cent it146;ll be

Last phase embarrassment: Villagers boycott polls to protest against misconduct by CRPF jawans

The turnout in the last phase of UP elections was not much better than those earlier with just 45 per cent of the voters exercising their franchise in 59 constituencies of the nine eastern UP districts. With this the marathon exercise of the UP Assembly elections concluded with a record low total turnout of 46.01 per cent. In 2002, this figure was 58 per cent.

Jalalpur Assembly segment of Ambedkarnagar district recorded the best turnout with 53 per cent polling on Tuesday, while the lowest percentage of 37 was recorded in Baansgaon and Doaba segments of Gorakhpur and Balia districts, respectively.

According to Chief Election Officer CEO Anuj Kumar Bishnoi, the last phase was by and large incident-free. However, a section of villagers in Gorakhpur, Maharajganj and Kushinagar boycotted polling in protest against the misconduct of CRPF jawans.

The incident pertains to Gangwal village under Dhuriapar Assembly segment of Gorakhpur, where a CRPF jawan was arrested on charges on sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on Monday evening. The villagers later surrounded the school where the incident took place and attacked the jawan.

A similar incident took place in Satgur village under Paniyara constituency in Maharajganj where another CRPF jawan barged into the house of a woman and tried to sexually assault her at gunpoint last night. However, the woman raised an alarm and freed herself from the jawan with the help of villagers. The villagers tied up the jawan and beat him up throughout the night. The police have registered FIRs in both cases and the accused have been arrested.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Devesh Chaturvedi said throughout the day the Election Commission continued to receive complaints of names missing from the voters8217; lists and snags in EVMs. Many voters in Akbarpur constituency couldn8217;t cast their votes due to disparity in the voters8217; list. He said 55 EVM had problems and were replaced, while 30 complains of names missing from the voter list were also received. Over 15,000 voters in Madhupur of Faizabad district also boycotted the election to highlight the lack of basic amenities in their village.

The prominent candidates in this phase include former CM Ram Naresh Yadav of the Congress from Phulpur, SP minister Ambika Chowdhry from Copachit and rebel SP leader Beni Prasad Verma.