Poll percentage dips marginally in Mizoram, goes up in Madhya Pradesh: EC

New Delhi/Aizawl: The voter turnout in Mizoram on Wednesday saw a small dip, whereas it went up in Madhya Pradesh, the Election Commission said.

Mizoram recorded 80 per cent voter turnout which was 83.41 per cent in 2013. In the 2008 assembly polls, it was 82.35 per cent, it said.

“The voter turnout (in Mizoram) has been 80 per cent but it may rise as the process to ascertain the final figure is still going on,” Ashish Kundra, Chief Electoral Officer of Mizoram, said late Wednesday. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the turnout was 61.06 per cent.

The poll panel said in Madhya Pradesh, a record 75 per cent voters turned up at polling stations to exercise their franchise. In 2013, the polling percentage was 72.13 per cent.

In Madhya Pradesh, as many as 2,899 candidates, including 1,094 independents, are in the fray for 230 seats, but the main contest is between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The state has 5.04 crore eligible voters.

Around 3,00,782 government employees, including 45,904 women, were on poll duty and 65,341 polling stations were set up. Polling was held in all 40 assembly seats in the northeast state.

Mizoram has an electorate of 7,70,395, including 3,94,897 female voters. A total of 209 candidates, 15 of them women, are in the fray.

Of the 1,179 polling booths, 47 were classified ‘critical’ and as many as ‘vulnerable’ by the Election Commission.

In Mizoram, around 55 per cent of Bru voters in six relief camps in Tripura came to Aizawl and exercised their franchise at the 15 special polling booths created for them after public outrage over their place of voting.

There was apprehension that the voter turnout of Bru refugees would be very less as some of their leaders were initially reluctant to come to Mizoram and demanded the earlier system of exercising their franchise at the relief camps itself.