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All-time high voting in UP, women set new record
Voters in
Uttar Pradesh set an all-time record in polling percentage, with
officials saying about 60 percent of its 127 million electorate
exercised their franchise in the staggered polling that began Feb
8 and ended Saturday.
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Lucknow/New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party was most likely to take power in Uttar Pradesh
amid a hung assembly, exit polls said Saturday as staggered
balloting ended in India's most populous state with a record
voting by 60 percent of its 127 million voters.
Three of four exit polls were unanimous that no one party would
command a majority in the 403-member state legislature but the
Samajwadi would be on top of a mainly four-horse race that began
Feb 8.
The surveys by India TV-C voter, News 24-Chanakya and Star
News-Nielsen gave the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav
between 141 and 185 seats, leaving the now ruling Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP) of Mayawati at a distant second spot.
The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS post poll survey did not give any
figures but suggested that "a Samajwadi wave" could propel it to
an outright majority.
The three surveys gave the BSP, which stunned everyone in 2007 by
taking power on its own, 85 to 126 seats, far below the magical
206 seats it captured five years ago.
Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders disowned the
findings. The BSP was silent. The estimated 60 million votes cast
in the seven-phase election would be counted Tuesday -- along with
the votes polled in Goa, Punjab, Manipur and Uttarakhand.
The exit polls are seen as bad news for the BJP but more so for
Congress leading campaigner Rahul Gandhi, who had been expected to
put his party on the victory lap in a state where it has been out
of power since 1989.
After the seventh and final round of balloting ended Saturday in
10 districts and 60 constituencies, the Election Commission said
an all-time high of 59.16 percent had voted in the 2012 assembly
elections.
The percentage surpassed all past records in the state involving
both the Lok Sabha and assembly battles.
The previous highest voting percentage was 57.13 in the 1993
assembly polls, which followed the 1992 razing of the Babri
mosque. The least ever polling took place in the simultaneous
elections for the assembly (39.29 percent) and Lok Sabha (38.41
percent) in 1951-52 -- the first after the country became
independent.
In the 2007 elections, while only one district in the sprawling
Uttar Pradesh polled more than 60 percent votes, this figure rose
to 37 in 2012.
The elections witnessed a major surge in voting in all major
cities including Lucknow, Allahabad, Meerut and Ghaziabad
bordering Delhi, partly due to Election Commission appeals to
people to vote without fail.
Although elections took place in five states in February-March,
most attention was focussed on Uttar Pradesh, India's politically
crucial state that has given the country a majority of its prime
ministers.
With Rahul Gandhi plunging aggressively into the electoral battle,
targeting Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav with equal vehemence,
Congress leaders were hopeful that he would come up with a magic
wand.
But the CNN-IBN survey said the Congress was poised to retain its
fourth spot in Uttar Pradesh, raising questions over Gandhi's
leadership. It said the party had lost the traditional Muslim
voter and failed to make inroads into the upper caste community.
Saturday's polling passed off peacefully. But 17 policewomen going
for election work were injured when their bus overturned in
Moradabad.
On Friday night, returning officers of two polling booths -- in
Bijnor and Moradabad districts -- died following heart attack.
A total of 6,839 candidates were in the fray across Utttar
Pradesh. The number for Saturday was 962, including 100 women.
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