57.64 % voters exercise their franchise in the by-election
PNS | DEHRADUN
The voting in the Kedarnath Assembly by-election ended peacefully on Wednesday evening. As per the early reports, 57.64 per cent voters came out to vote in the crucial bypoll. The additional chief electoral officer (ACEO) Vijay Kumar Jogdande said that no untoward incident was reported in any polling booth of the constituency. He expressed gratitude to the voters for the peaceful polling.
The polling started on a slow note with only 4.37 per cent voters coming out to vote in the first hour. However the voting picked up later with 17.69 per cent polling reported till 11 am and 34.40 per cent till 1 pm. At 5 pm, 56.78 per cent of voters had exercised their franchise.
The BJP candidate Asha Nautiyal casted her vote at government junior high school Sari in Ukhimath block while Manoj Rawat of Congress was among the early voters to visit government school Bhanaj in Agastyamuni block to cast his vote.
The by-election turnout in Kedarnath is good considering the fact that less turnout is reported usually in the by-elections. Both Congress and BJP are claiming that the good voter turnout is in their favour.
In the by-elections held in July this year in Manglaur and Badrinath 68.24 and 49.80 per cent voter turnout was reported respectively.
In the Assembly elections held in the year 2022, 65.03 voter turnout was reported while in the Assembly election of 2017, 61.94 per cent voters exercised their franchise.
The voting in all 173 booths of the constituency started at 8 am and ended at 6 pm. The administration had divided the constituency into two zones and 27 sectors and the election commission had made arrangements of webcasting from 130 polling booths.
In the bypoll 90,875 voters (44,919 male and 45,956 female) were registered to exercise their franchise.
The BJP has won the constituency three times while Congress has registered victory on two occasions in the past.
