Madhya Pradesh recorded a voting percentage of 76.15 per cent and Chhattisgarh saw a voters’ turnout of 71.83 per cent at 5 pm on the 70 seats that went to the polls in the second phase of the election in the state, according to the latest data from Election Commission.
Madhya Pradesh had seen 60.52 per cent voter turn-out till 3 pm in all the 230 assembly seats that went to the polls on Friday. The voters’ turnout in the state was 45.40 per cent till 1 pm.
Voting for 230 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh began at 7 am on Friday.
The election will decide the electoral fates of over 2,500 candidates.
Nearly 5.59 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. It includes 2.87 crore male and 2.71 crore women voters. There are over 5,000 booths run by women and 183 polling stations run by the disabled, officials said.
Chhattisgarh has seen 55.31 per cent of voters’ turnout in the second phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly polls till 3 pm. The turnout in Chhattisgarh was 38.22 per cent till 1 pm.
Chhattisgarh has 90 seats and 20 seats went to the polls on November 7 in the first phase.
The timing for polling is from 8 am to 5 pm except nine polling booths in the Naxal-affected Bindranawagarh seat in Rajim district, where voting was held from 7 am to 3 pm
For Chhattisgarh, over 18,800 polling stations were set up for the second phase of polling.
A total of 958 candidates are in the fray across the 70 seats.
The main fight in both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh is between the Congress and the BJP.
The polls, coming nearly six months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, are crucial for both the BJP and Congress for various reasons. The counting of votes in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh along with that in Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram will be done on December 3.
Women script history, manage entire polling booths in Raipur seat
Raipur: Making history, all polling booths in the Raipur North Assembly Constituency in Chhattisgarh were exclusively staffed and overseen by women polling personnel, as announced by the Election Commission (EC) on Friday. This marks the first occurrence of such an initiative in any assembly seat across the country. The commission revealed that 1,046 women were deployed across the 201 polling booths established in the constituency. These polling booths, entirely managed by women, aimed to provide a sense of comfort and security for all voters, particularly focusing on inclusivity for female and third-gender voters during the elections, according to the EC. In the second phase, seventy assembly seats in Chhattisgarh underwent polling on Friday, while elections took place in all 230 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh. The first phase of polls in Chhattisgarh occurred on November 7.
