13 May 2009, PTI
NEW DELHI: An estimated 62% of the electorate on Wednesday exercised their franchise in the fifth and final phase of polling in Lok Sabha elections,bringing down the curtain on the month-long democratic exercise, the longest in the world.
Barring stray violence which left two persons dead, the final round saw voting in 86 constituencies where nearly 11 crore voters were eligible to vote, across nine states and two union territories, including all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, considered a key swing state, where the turnout was recorded at 60-62% in the 39 seats.
Skirmishes marred polling in some places in Tamil Nadu leaving ond local DMK functionary dead in Dindgul district.
Fifty two per cent of the voters turned out in the 14 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh spread across Rohilkhand region and western part of the state which put to test the Muslim-Yadav vote bank of Samajwadi Party.
About 70% turnout was recorded in the 11 constituencies in West Bengal which went to poll today and the exercise passed off by and large peacefully except the killing of a local CPM leader allegedly by Trinamool Congress activists.
Working on the post-poll arithmetic, the Congress-led UPA is looking for a new term in office while the NDA steered by the BJP is trying to end its term in the opposition, although it isn't clear if one of them would on their own be able to muster the 272 seats needed to stake claim for power.
Politicians were fierce verbally during campaigning, but the elections itself were bloody with naxalites attacking polling and security personnel in the first two rounds leaving over 20 dead.
Chief Election Commssioner Navin Chawla told reporters in the capital that the overall turnout of voters involving nearly 714 million voters in the five phases was 59-60%.
Counting will be held on May 16.
One person was killed and several hurt in clashes in Tamil Nadu today, while another was killed in a clash between Trinamool Congress and CPI-M activists outside Kolkata before polling began.
Prominent candidates in today's round included Home Minister P Chidambaram, DMK's T R Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran and M K Azhagiri, Congress' Md Azharuddin, BJP's Maneka and Varun Gandhi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, MDMK's Vaiko and SP's Jayaprada.
Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sajjad Gani Lone of People's Conference, BJP's Vinod Khanna and Navjot Singh Sidhu were also among the big names in this round that saw a total of 1,432 candidates jumping into the fray.
Besides all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, elections were held to four seats in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, five in Uttarakhand and the lone one seat each in both Chandigarh and Puducherry.
Uttar Pradesh, which returns the highest number of MPs (80), and Jammu and Kashmir were the only two states to go to polls in all the five phases.
The Lok Sabha has 545 members, but elections are held to 543 seats as two members are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community.
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