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Lok Sabha Election Phase 2: Ink leaves stains in West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir

Hitches in phase two of general elections: Sporadic Violence, EVM glitches, Names missing from rolls

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Voters, from the 11 states and the Union Territory of Puducherry that went to the polls in the second phase of the world’s biggest election, show their ink-marked fingers after casting the ballot
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Sporadic violence flared in West Bengal and the insurgency-wracked Jammu and Kashmir as millions across swathes of India cast ballots on Thursday in the second phase of the mammoth, staggered general election, in which a few EVMs malfunctioned.

Road blockades, bombings and police firing marred polling at a few places in Bengal's Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj, with 76.42 per cent overall voter turnout.

Raiganj reported the maximum violence, from its Chopra and Islampur areas. Voters of Chopra blocked a national highway to protest absence of central forces. Police fired in the air and burst tear gas shells to control a mob, who threw stones at them. Bombs were also hurled by miscreants, an EC official in the district said.

"We have no confidence in state police and want central forces here," said a voter of Hemtabad (SC) assembly segment. Later, voters were escorted by security personnel to polling stations, he said.

Special Police Observer Vivek Dubey, though, described the voting as "more or less peaceful".


(Security perosnnel take away miscreants in North Dinajpur)

CPI(M) candidate from Raiganj, Mohammad Salim, said: "I got to know of rigging in a booth at Islampur. After I reached the polling station, some people attacked my car. I believe the TMC is behind this," Salim alleged.

In Jammu and Kashmir, where separatists have called an election boycott, security forces outnumbered voters in Srinagar and Udhampur, the two seats up for voting on Thursday. Srinagar recorded 15 per cent turnout, breaking the single-digit jinx.

Authorities snapped mobile internet services and set up barricades to thwart attacks. Groups of youths still hurled stones at them. Police fired teargas in Srinagar to disperse them.

Several migrant Kashmiri Pandits demanded a probe by the Election Commission when they found their names were missing from the electoral rolls at special polling stations set up for Srinagar constituency in Jammu.

Long lines formed outside polling stations in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu — the southern states which could be decisive in choosing the next prime minister.

The Marwadi trader community of Bengaluru was in for a rude shock when many of them found their names deleted from the electoral roll, which several of them felt was a "conspiracy."

Mahendra Jain said his name too was missing from the electoral roll. "My voter ID itself is 15-year-old which I got the day I shifted to this place but today it does not exist," said Jain. "All the Jains and Marwadis were identified and their names deleted from the electoral roll."

In all, 14 seats in Karnataka went to polls along with 10 in Maharashtra, eight in Uttar Pradesh, five each in Assam, Bihar and Odisha, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, two in Jammu and Kashmir and one seat each in Manipur and Puducherry.

Elections were also held in 35 assembly constituencies in Odisha while bypolls are being held in 18 assembly segments in Tamil Nadu.

Voting was cancelled in one Tamil Nadu constituency after about Rs 10 rore in cash — believed to be intended as bribes — was seized by police.

Tamil Nadu registered 63.73 per cent polling for the 38 Lok Sabha seats Thursday even as paramilitary forces fired in the air near Arakkonam in Vellore district to disperse a restive crowd.

The bypoll to 18 assembly constituencies here saw 67.08 per cent voting percentage.

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