LUCKNOW: The repoll ordered by the Election Commission of India at 73 booths in Kairana Lok Sabha constituency on Monday passed off peacefully with around 61 per cent voters turned up to cast their votes on Wednesday. Counting of votes will take place on Thursday.
As per the state election office, around 80,000 voters were eligible to cast their votes at the booths where the repolling was held on Wednesday. The voters had started thronging the booths in good numbers since morning. The voting had taken off at 7 am and continued till 6 pm in 23 polling stations at Nakur, 44 in Gangoh, one polling station at Thana Bhawan in Saharanpur and five in Shamli.
The repoll on 73 booths of Kairana parliamentary constituency was ordered by the ECI consequent to malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPATs at good number of booths during Monday voting. Around 385 booths witnessed such glitches. Some of them were rectified but 73 booths had to go for repoll.
Both the opposition and ruling party leaders had approached the ECI and had met state chief Electoral Officer (CEO) separately over the faulty EVMs demanding repoll in booths where anomalies were detected in the machines.
The repoll percentage, however, has been a bit higher than Monday voting percentage which had stood out to be around 54 per cent in Kairana. Noorpur Assembly constituency too had gone to bypoll the same day with 62 per cent voters’ turn out.
The repoll to both Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly constituencies were necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP lawmakers --- Humkum Singh in Kairana and Lokendra Singh, the Noorpur MLA.
While in Kairana BJP’s Mirganka Singh, daughter of Hukum Singh, was in direct contrst with RLD’s Tabassum Hassan who was supported by SP, BSP, Congress and AAP.