05-19-2008, 03:38 AM
Dakshina Kannada records 72 per cent polling
Staff Correspondent
One EVM fails in Illanthila; impersonator arrested
Polling in the 1,321 booths was incident-free, say officials
Belthangady, Puttur register the highest of
80 per cent voting
â Photo: Jaideep Shenoy
VIGILANT: A Border Security Force personnel guarding the booth at Kulshekar in Mangalore on Friday.
MANGALORE: Dakshina Kannada district lived up to its reputation of registering a high voter turnout in the elections held in eight Assembly constituencies on Friday. The district administration said the entire polling process was incident-free and an estimated 72 per cent of the 13.33-lakh voters exercised their franchise. There was one case each of impersonation and an electronic voting machine (EVM) failing reported from the district.
Sources in the district administration told The Hindu here that one EVM failed in booth number 159 at Illanthila village in Belthangady constituency. âWe had 1,321 polling booths in the district and as many EVMs were used,â sources said. The data in the EVM at Illanthila was not retrievable and the administration would send a report to the Election Commission, the sources said.
Asked if this could result in a re-poll being ordered in this particular booth, the sources said the Election Commission would decide on it. Around 350 votes had been cast in that booth before the machine failed. The election process continued with the help of a stand-by EVM. However, with the main machine failing, re-polling might become inevitable, the sources said.
Long queues
The peopleâs enthusiasm to vote was evident by the long queues seen across the district. Presiding officers in many booths had to wait till people who were in the queue at 5 p.m. voted. The minimum voting percentage in most constituencies, according to official sources, was above 60 per cent, with reports of it reaching a high of around 80 per cent in Bantwal and Puttur constituencies.
Impersonation
The presiding officer of booth number 74 at Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Urdu School at Kudroli, N.S. Govind Bhat, noticed a person who had come to impersonate a voter. The accused has been identified as Shailesh, resident of Uliya in Ullal, who attempted to impersonate Sujith by using a ration card that he had brought along. A case has been registered at the Mangalore North police station.