NEW DELHI, May 7 : The third of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls on Tuesday witnessed 61.45% voter turnout (as of 8 PM) with voting largely remaining peaceful and smooth across 93 seats barring reports of sporadic incidents of violence from West Bengal.
“Polling in the third phase of General Elections 2024 which commenced at 7 am today simultaneously across 93 PCs (parliamentary constituencies) recorded an approximate voter turnout of 61.45% as of 8 pm,” the top poll body Election Commission of India (ECI) said.
With the conclusion of Phase-3, polling is now over in 20 states and Union Territories (UTs) and 283 parliamentary constituencies. A total of 1,331 candidates were in the electoral fray in this phase.
In the third phase, Assam saw the highest voter turnout at 75.26%, followed by Goa (74.27%). West Bengal also witnessed higher voter turnout at 73.93%. The key Hindi heartland states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh logged relatively lower voter turnout at 56.55% and 57.34% respectively. Maharashtra recorded the lowest voter turnout at 54.77%.
In the BJP stronghold state of Gujarat, voter turnout was 56.76%. In the Congress-ruled state of Karnataka, voter participation was 67.76%.
Chhattisgarh witnessed 66.99% voters coming to the polling booths.
In the first and second phases of the election, overall voter turnout was 66.14% and 66.71% respectively. Polling for 189 seats was completed in these two phases.
While both ruling BJP and opposition parties led by Congress have been locked in stiff fight for scooping up a bigger share of the Lok Sabha seats pie, the battle turned fierce days before the third phase with leaders from both sides firing salvos at each other. There are no signs of any let-up from either side in coming days and weeks till the final phase of polling happens on June 1.
With the conclusion of the third phase, polling has now been completed on more than half of the total 543 seats. Some of the prominent politicians whose fate was locked in EVM (electronic voting machine) today include Supriya Sule (Baramati, Maharashtra), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna, Madhya Pradesh), Dimple Yadav (Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh) and Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar, Gujarat).
A total of 17.24 crore people were eligible to vote in the third phase of the Lok Sabha polls. The 11 states and Union Territories (UTs) where election was held today included Bihar (5 seats), Maharashtra (11 seats), Uttar Pradesh (10 seats), Madhya Pradesh (9 seats), Assam (4 seats), West Bengal (4 seats), Gujarat (25 seats), Chhattisgarh (7 seats), Goa (2 seats), Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (2 seats) and Karnataka (14 seats).
The fourth phase of election covering 96 parliamentary constituencies across 10 States /UTs is scheduled on May 13. The counting of votes would take place on June 4 after the conclusion of the seventh and last phase of Lok Sabha polls on June 1. (UNI)
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