© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Madhya Pradesh went to polls in all its 230 assembly constituencies Friday where there was tentative voting of nearly 76.22 per cent till 5pm, Election Commission officials said.
Sporadic clashes were reported across the state and an aide of a Congress worker was killed after two groups fought in the Rajnagar constituency of Chhatarpur. Five persons were injured in a skirmish between two groups in Mhow area of Indore district, while two men were wounded in a clash in Morena district’s Dimani constituency, where Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar is contesting, they said.
On the Chhatarpur scuffle, SP Amit Sanghi said, “In Raj Nagar assembly constituency region under Khajuraho Police Station, a scuffle broke out between two political parties’ candidates and their supporters at around 3:15 am. After that, a brawl took place, and a man named Salman died. The other political party said Salman died because a vehicle ran over him and his post-mortem is underway in the district hospital…We’ll conduct the proceedings soon in the matter.”
In 2018, 75.63 per cent voters had cast their ballots. The EC said that till 5pm Friday, a total of 71.19 per cent men and 71.14 per cent women cast their votes.
The percentage of voters under the age of 30 was 29.3 per cent. The percentage of voters above the age of 60 years was 12.4 per cent.
The highest turnout was registered in Gwalior rural where the turnout was 74.01 per cent.
Indore recorded a turnout of 70.54 per cent where BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has been fielded to shore up the party’s chances in the region. At Indore-1, where Vijayvargiya is contesting, the turnout was 69.08 per cent.
At the saffron bastion in Bhopal the turnout was 66 per cent. The party hopes to wrest the three Congress seats. All eyes will be on the contest in Bhopal (central), where there was a turnout of 60.1 per cent. The sitting MLA Arif Masood is up against controversial BJP candidate and former MLA Dhruv Narayan Singh, whose name cropped up in the Shehla Masood murder case. He was not prosecuted in the case but lost out on a ticket in 2013 after his win in 2008.
Riot scarred Khargone recorded a voter turnout of 78.89 per cent. In the Maoist affected district of Balaghat, there was a turnout of 85.23 per cent. The Maoist-affected segments in this district saw high turnouts in Baihar (84.81 per cent), Lanjhi (84.5) and Paraswada (86.37).
