59.2% voter turnout recorded till 5 pm in first phase of Gujarat Assembly polls

AN AVERAGE 59.24 per cent voter turnout was recorded as of 5 pm on Thursday across 89 Assembly seats in the first phase of Gujarat elections, election officials said.

While voting began at 8 in the morning and ended at 5 pm, the final turn-out would be higher as the process continued at the polling stations where voters had arrived before 5 pm and were standing in queues.

The voter turn-out figure was provisional as data from some polling stations had not been received and it also did not include postal ballots, the Election Commission said.

The fate of 788 candidates will be decided in the first phase. Barring a few incidents, polling was largely peaceful across all 89 seats in south Gujarat and Saurashtra-Kutch regions which went to polls in the first phase.

Voting was halted in a few places due to malfunctioning of the Electronic Voting Machines EVMs) as well as control units and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail VVPATs), but the faulty units were replaced and the process resumed, it added.