New Delhi, Feb 15 The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday said that the polling for single phase assembly election in 40 seats in Goa, 70 in Uttarakhand and for 55 seats in Uttar Pradesh's second phase were held peacefully following the Covid protocol.
Polling was conducted in 36,823 polling stations spread across 165 Assembly constituencies, wherein nearly 2.95 crore electors, including over five lakh first-time electors, exercised their franchise.
As part of the ECI's initiative to provide a comfortable experience to women voters, 334 'All Women-Managed' polling stations were set up across all the 165 constituencies.
There were a total of 1,519 candidates contesting in this phase across Goa, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh which included 158 women candidates.
The Commission made arrangements for live monitoring and webcasting mechanism for more than 50 per cent of the polling stations including critical and vulnerable polling booths wherein the ECI, Chief Electoral officers and District Election officers, Observers could watch live streaming and keep a close watch on these polling booths.
Today before the start of the poll, each of the EVMs and VVPATs underwent a mock poll in every polling station in the presence of polling agents of the candidates with minimum 50 votes and the results of EVM were matched with the result of VVPAT slips and shown to the polling agents, the poll panel said.
The Commission also informed that from the date of notification of Election till poll day of second phase, record seizure of Rs. 224.71 crore has already been achieved in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa. The seizure includes seizure of cash, liquor, narcotics, and freebies while 2400 Flying Squads and 2654 Static Surveillance Teams were operationalised to check movement of cash, liquor, drugs and freebies in the three states.
The progressive seizure of all five states where assembly elections are being held as on date is Rs 771.25 crores. For this phase, 106 General Observers, 35 Expenditure Observers and 39 Police Observers were deployed by the Commission to ensure free and fair elections.
Since the implementation of Mode Code of Conduct, a total number six of 612 cases of Model Code of Conduct violations were reported through the VIGIL app from Goa, of which all cases were disposed of as of today.
The voter turnout reported by 5 p.m. was 75.29 per cent in Goa, 59.37 per cent in Uttarakhand and 60.44 per cent In Uttar Pradesh.
ECI also recognizes the services of the entire electoral machinery including polling staff on duty, security personnel, supervisory staff, Observers, Special Observers, enforcement agencies as also the Health authorities for "making comprehensive arrangements and dedicatedly" working towards successful conduct of free, fair, transparent and safe elections.
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