Panchayat polls: Voting peaceful, 69% turnout in Faridabad, 73.9% in Palwal

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Faridabad/Palwal, November 22

Around 69.5 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections in Faridabad district today. The voting percentage touched 73.9 in Palwal district.

The polling, which was slow initially, picked up around noon and over 60 per cent voters had cast their vote till 4.30 pm. Presence of a large number of women and young voters was seen at the majority of booths in both districts.

In all, 311 and 702 booths were set up in Faridabad and Palwal districts, respectively. The total number of voters was 2,28,080 and 5,62,419 in Faridabad and Palwal districts, respectively.

Seventy-three candidates for 10 seats of zila parishad and 243 for 60 wards of panchayat samiti are in the fray in Faridabad. In Palwal, 142 candidates for 20 wards of zila parishad and 604 candidates for 134 wards of the panchayat samiti are in the fray.

Most of the 450 voters hailing from Vijaygarh village in Hodal subdivision of Palwal district abstained from voting in protest against not having a polling station in the village. “The voters of the village did not cast vote at the booth set up in the neighbouring village of Khirbi, located over 3 km away,” said residents Rahul and Deepak. While some officials reached the village to request them to cast votes, a majority of the voters did not turn up, they said.

The Palwal DC claimed that many residents cast vote at the polling station located 1.5 km away from Vijaygarh village. He said the polling continued peacefully till 6 pm.

More than 7,500 cops were deployed in both districts. As many as 130 and 313 booths were declared hypersensitive in Faridabad and Palwal, respectively.