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62% cast votes in final round of polling in LS elections
New Delhi, May 13
Voters in a queue to cast their vote at a polling booth at Davesamaj College for Women, during the 5th and final phase of the General Elections - 2009, in Chandigarh today.
With this, about 59 to 60 per cent of the 714 million voters had exercised their franchise in the month-long elections, official sources said.
Exit polls conducted by various televison channels gave the Congress, which is leading the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) a slight edge over its main rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is leading the National Democratic Alliance.
The final round of voting today was by and large peaceful, barring stray cases of violence which left two people dead.
All 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu went to the polls today and the state recorded a turnout of about 60-62 per cent.
In Uttar Pradesh, where voting was held for 14 seats, the percentage of voting was about 52, while 70 per cent of the voters turned out in 11 constituencies of West Bengal.
Among those whose electoral fortunes were sealed today are Home Minister P Chidambaram, Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee, MDMK general secretary Vaiko and the BJP's Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka Gandhi.
Some of the other key contestants include Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin and his team-mate Navjyot Singh Sidhu, film stars Jayaprada and Vinod Khanna and DMK leaders T R Baalu and Dayanidhi Maran.
In all, 1432 candidates, including 93 women, were in the fray for this phase of polling.
Counting of votes will be taken up on May 16 and results of all the 543 seats are expected to be out by that evening.
Voting was also held today for four seats in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, five in Uttarakhand, one in Chandigarh and one in Puducherry.
Among the national parties, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party had fielded candidates in 83 of the constituencies that went to the polls today, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 53, Congress in 49, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in 14, the Communist Party of India (CPI) in seven, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in six and the Rashtriya Janata dal (RJD) in one,
State parties accounted for 192 candidates, unrecognised parties for 248 and independents for 779, official figures showed.
Polling began at 0700 hours and ended at 1700 hours in all constituencies. As many as 1,21,632 polling stations were set up for this round.
The exercise to choose the 15th Lok Sabha began on April 16 with the first round of polling, followed by the second round on April 23, the third on April 30 and the fourth on May 7.
The Lok Sabha has 545 seats, including two members of the Anglo-Indian community who are nominated by the President.
The tenure of the present Lok Sabha will expire in the normal course on June 1 and a new House is required to be constituted before June 2, as per the constitutional provisions.
The Election Commission expressed immense satisfaction about the five phases of polling.
Polling was also held for the state legislative assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim along with the Lok Sabha elections.
NNN
