Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had claimed that these polls were the mid-term test for the performance of the state government.
Around 64% voting was reported for the polling held for the general elections for the 74 seats of the Pune zilla parishad and 149 seats of the panchayat samiti on Tuesday.
Over 16 lakh voters out of 25 lakh exercised their franchise.
Elections for these local bodies assumed importance as Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had claimed that these polls were the mid-term test for the performance of the state government.
Heavyweights like deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, Baramati MP Supriya Sule, speaker of the assembly Dilip Walse Patil, minister Ananthrao Thopte and others were keenly interested in these polls to keep their political clouts intact in the local elections.
The highest voting percentage was recorded in Indapur, the political fiefdom of state co-operative minister Harshavardhan Patil, with 73% of the electorates exercising their franchise. The lowest voting percentage was reported in Haveli, with only 55% voting being registered.
According to district collector Vikas Deshmukh, no untoward incidents were reported from any part of the district. Mauri and Shirkoli were the two villages who had boycotted the polls to register their protest.
“Over 1,930 voters in Mauri had boycotted the polls to protest against the ongoing land acquisition for the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), while 1,000 voters of Shirkoli were against the land acquisition for the Panshet dam,” he said.
Sakri in Mulshi taluka was the only village where the voting was held on boats.
Deshmukh said that other than a single incident of malfunctioning of the counting unit, the performance of the electronic voting machines (EVM) was perfect in the district. The results of these polls would be declared along with that of the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad
municipal corporations on February 17.
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