Today at 8 A.M., the second phase of the Gujarat election polls commenced. A total number of 851 candidates are in the fray for 93 seats. The BJP President Amit Shah, former Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben and the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi’s mother are among the first group of people voting today.
The polling is being held in 14 districts of the Northern and Central regions including Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Ahmedabad and Vadodara are the two megacities that overwhelmingly backed up the BJP in the previous election. The BJP won 26 out of the 31 seats from these two districts alone.
Today, the fate of the 851 candidates will be decided by the 2.22 crore people. A total number of 25,575 Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are set up in the 25,558 polling stations. From the 182 seats 93 will go to the second phase of the Gujarat election polls.
Today morning, Modi appealed to the people asking them to come out in large numbers and exercise their franchise by voting in the second phase of the Gujarat election polls. Modi tweeted, “Today is Phase 2 of the Gujarat elections. I request all those voting today to vote in record numbers and enrich this festival of democracy.”
The Congress President elect Rahul Gandhi also appealed to the people for the same. Gandhi tweeted, “The ushering in of a new Gujarat has already begun. Your one vote will strengthen and empower the foundations of democracy. I appeal to the people of the state to vote more and more for a bright tomorrow.”
Three polling stations in Vadodara City reported the malfunctioning of the EVM machines. The Election Commission (EC) officers replaced the machines and voting is now underway. The Polling Officer of Sankheda’s Sodhaliya village in Chhota Udaipur Gaurang Rana said, “The EVM here was dysfunctional for 50 minutes, so voting was halted for that duration. We fixed the machine and now the voting is underway.”
The EC deployed hundreds of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPC,) Rapid Action Force (RAF,) and State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) for the second phase of the Gujarat election polls.
The EC officials stated in the first two hours of the second phase of the Gujarat election polls, the average voting in Ahmedabad district is 9.6%. The voter turnout in the first phase of the Gujarat election polls held on the 9th of December is 66.75%. The voting started at 8 A.M., and will go on till 5 P.M.
