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Polling peaceful, brief halt due to rain in evening

Nagpur: The election officials have estimated that the average polling in Bhandara district would be around 70%. The polling percentage till 5pm was 64.01%.

Polling in Sakoli was peaceful on Monday. On Friday night, campaigning had taken an ugly turn in Sakoli after supporters of Congress candidate Nana Patole and BJP candidate Parinay Fuke clashed over the latter distributing cash among voters.

The police had seized about Rs18 lakh cash from the vehicle of Fuke’s brother Nitin and arrested him. He was booked for rioting.

Supporters of Patole, including his nephew Tirthanand, were booked for criminal intimidation.

Polling was slow in the morning hours. The voting percentage till 9am was just 3.89%. It increased to 31.45% by 1pm. Voters started queuing up on polling booths after 3pm.

The polling figures in the three constituencies in the district at 5pm were Tumsar — 66.20%, Bhandara — 59.53% and Sakoli — 67.13%.

According to district administration’s preliminary figures, 6.34 lakh voters exercised their franchise out of which 3.19 lakh were males while 3.16 lakh female.

Polling was affected around 5pm when it started raining. Voters took shelter for sometime and later came back to polling booths when the rain stopped.

As per directives of Election Commission , seven polling booths were completely managed by women in each of the three constituencies. These booths were decorated with rangolis and colourful banners. Pandals were erected at the entrance of these booths and they were decorated with flowers. These booths had facilities of drinking water, clean lavatories, seats for senior citizens, etc.

No untoward incident was reported in the district during polling. Yashoda Fulbandhe, 107-year-old, cast her vote in Lal Bahadur Shastri School, Paoni.

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