66% Voting In Phase 2, Faulty EVMs Reported in Many States: Election 2019
At least 67.84% voters turned up at the polling stations as 95 constituencies in 11 States and one Union Territory went to the polls in the second phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday.
The Election Commission (EC) officials in New Delhi, however, said that the turnout percentage would go up when the final reports in all polling stations would come in. The Lok Sabha constituencies, which went to the polls in the second phase, had registered an average turnout of 69.62% during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The EC set up nearly 1.78 lakh Polling Stations for over 15.52 crore voters to exercise franchise and decide the fate of altogether 1596 candidates.
Sudeep Jain, Deputy Election Commissioner, said that only 0.371% of the Ballot Units of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), 0.40% of the Control Units and 1.45% of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) devices deployed for polls in 95 constituencies had to be replaced after they developed glitches and malfunctioned.
The reports of the EVMs being damaged by miscreants came in from two polling stations located in Inner Manipur constituency of Manipur and Uttar Dinajpur constituency of West Bengal respectively, said Jain.
The constituencies, which went to polls in the second phase, included 14 of the total 28 parliamentary constituencies in Karnataka. The polling for the remaining Lok Sabha seats from the state will take place in the third phase on April 23.
An official deployed by the EC for works related to polling was killed in an attack by ultra-leftist insurgents in Odisha on Wednesday. A 95-year-old man also collapsed and died while waiting in the queue before a polling station in the State on Thursday. Another man was killed in a clash between two political parties in the state, Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Deputy Election Commissioner, said in New Delhi.
A polling official also died in Chhatisgarh after suffering a cardiac arrest. The polling for the by-polls to 18 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu was also held along with the Lok Sabha polls on Thursday.