Over 69 percent voting in Udhampur: CEO

Jammu, April 17 (IANS) Over 69 percent votes were polled Thursday in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur Lok Sabha seat where elections passed off peacefully, said a top poll panel official.

"A total of 69.08 percent votes were polled today in Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency as against 45 percent polled during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections," state chief electoral officer (CEO) Umang Narula said at a media conference here.

"The total electorate in the constituency is 1,468,856 out of which 787,680 are females and 681,205 are males.

"The election commission had set up 2,051 polling stations at 1,798 places. To supervise the conduct of the polls, we had set up 337 digital and 132 video cameras for webcasting in the constituency."

"198 of these polling stations were declared as critical because of security reasons."

The CEO said 269 micro observers had been deputed for these polls in which 2,772 EVMs were used.

"As many as 545 poll staff was air-lifted for election duties to inaccessible areas where polling stations were set up.

"Six faulty EVMs were replaced during the day. Three of these were replaced in the Kathua district and one each in Udhampur, Kishtwar and Reasi."

The CEO said there was no incident of violence anywhere.

He thanked voters and poll staff for their participation in the election in which the main contest is between union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, Jitender Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Arshad Malik of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).