More than 68% voter turnout, the highest in many years and little lower than 72% recorded in the 2012 polls, was recorded in the first phase of the crucial Gujarat Assembly elections on Saturday. The high turnout came amid several complaints of malfunctioning EVMs, even as polling was entirely peaceful.
As many as 977 candidates were in the fray in the first phase of the elections, which many see as a semi-final to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. An adverse or poor result in his home state would put Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the back-foot.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, state BJP president Jitu Vaghani, and Congress leaders Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia were among the key candidates in the first phase.
Polling began in 89 Assembly seats of Saurashtra, Kutch and south Gujarat at a brisk pace as voters queued up at polling stations right from 8 am, when voting started. Close to 8% voting was reported in the first hour itself, and it crossed 30% in four hours. By 4 pm, polling had touched 60%, and it crossed 68% at the end of the day.
"Of the 2.12 crore voters eligible to vote, a little over 1.44 crore voters exercised their right to franchise," highly placed officials in the Election Commission, said.
With 75 per cent voters exercising their right to vote, Navsari and Morbi recorded the highest voter turnout among the 19 districts that went to polls in the first phase. They were followed by Narmada and Tapi with 73 per cent turnout.
The lowest 60% turnout was reported in Porbandar and Botad, followed by Bhavnagar with 62%, and Kutch and Devbhumi Dwarka with 63%, officials said.
Polling was slated to end at 5 pm, but voters who were already in queues at the cut-off time, were allowed to vote, said BB Swain, the state's Chief Electoral Officer. "The polling process was smooth," he said, adding, "No violence was reported from any part of the state."However, polling was disrupted and delayed at many booths due to glitches in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units. Officials said that 714 VVPAT units, 164 ballot units and 225 control units, which were found to be faulty, had to be replaced.
"The number of replaced ballot units and control units was less than half a percent, while that of VVPAT units was below 2%," said an official.
South Gujarat and Saurashtra are both traditional BJP strongholds, and in the 2012 elections, the party had won 66 out of 89 seats on offer. However, what should be a worrying sign for BJP is the high voter turnout across Patidar dominated seats in Surat, Morbi, Amreli and Rajkot. BJP is jittery about Patidar votes as many in the community are unhappy over denial of reservation benefits. Incidentally, Patidar reservation stir leader Hardik Patel had declared support for Congress a few days back.
Tribal dominated seats in Bharuch, Narmada, Tapi, Surat and Valsad also saw significantly higher turnout when compared to the overall voting. Congress traditionally dominated these seats, but BJP had won most of them in the 2012 polls.
With the marriage season on, many brides and grooms, clad in wedding finery, came to polling booths to exercise their franchise at many places.
Chief Minister Rupani, contesting from Rajkot West seat, went to cast his vote along with his wife Anjali. He claimed the long queues and voter excitement suggests BJP will win more than 150 seats and create a new record in the state.
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