Barring instances of confusion among voters regarding polling stations, cases of missing and shifted voters, overall polling in the elections to the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation concluded peacefully with 53.81% voters turning up to exercise their franchise on Friday.
In an official communication, Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad and District Returning Officer Nitesh Patil said that polling concluded peacefully and 53.81% voters had cast their votes.
In all, there are 420 candidates fighting it out in 82 wards of the municipal corporation.
The total number of wards increased to 82 from 67 after delimitation and there are 8.17 lakh voters in the twin cities. In the last municipal council elections, 66% polling was recorded.
Polling began at a very slow pace with only 7.73% voters casting their votes in the first two hours. Chairman of the Legislative Council Basavaraj Horatti, Hubballi-Dharwad West MLA Arvind Bellad and the former MLA Chandrakant Bellad were among those who cast their votes early.
Polling picked up pace after 9 a.m. and in the next two hours the polling percentage improved a bit with 18.18% voters casting their votes by 11 a.m. By 1 p.m. 29.01% voters had cast their votes and it went up to 39.22% by 3 p.m. and in the next two hours it reached 50.39%.
In the last hour of the polling just over 3% voters cast their votes taking the final polling percentage to 53.81%. The former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar exercised his vote along with his wife Shilpa and son Sankalp, while Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi cast his vote along with his wife Jyoti and two daughters.
Congress MLA Prasad Abbayya cast his vote along with his wife and mother.
The former MLAs Ashok Katwe and Virabhadrappa Halaharavi were among other prominent leaders who exercised their franchise.
Confusion
There was confusion and heated arguments at polling station No 3 at St. Peter’s High School in Hubballi for some time with locals saying that there was deletion of over 500 names from a single polling station.
This angered the residents and Municipal Commissioner Suresh Itnal had to rush to the spot to clarify to them. He said that if at all a mistake had happened, it would be rectified.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders, including Mr. Prasad Abbayya, said that BJP leaders had misused the government machinery to deprive voters of their franchise, especially in wards where Congress supporters were high.
Although the former Mayor and BJP leader Viranna Savadi admitted that there had been several discrepancies in the voter list, he said that it was wrong to blame the BJP for it.
Mr. Savadi said that because of the failure of senior officials to properly oversee the revision of voter list following delimitation in several wards, members of single families staying under one roof had been assigned different wards.
He said that the booth level staff had revised the voter list sitting in office because of which voters were being made to run from one polling station to another to cast their votes.
Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi said that the issue had come to his notice and he would take it up with the State Election Commission to get the mistakes rectified.
Earlier in the day, absence of VVPAT machines led to confusion in a few polling stations with a few local booth agents objecting to holding polling without them. It took some time for the polling officials and staff to clarify and convince them that this time VVPATs were not being used for the HDMC council elections. Subsequently, voting resumed.
Following the incident, Deputy Commissioner Nitesh Patil issued a clarification and made an appeal to the electronic media not to highlight such incidents caused due to misinformation.
