New Delhi: Polling for the Haryana assembly elections officially closed at 6 pm on Saturday (October 5) and as of an hour afterward, the Election Commission (EC) recorded an approximate turnout of 61.19%.
As per the EC’s provisional data checked at 7:45 pm, the Jagadhri constituency in the Yamunanagar district recorded the highest turnout trend of 73.9%, while the Badkhal constituency in the Faridabad district registered the lowest turnout trend at 42%.
This provisional data also pegged the approximate voter turnout trend at 61.32%.
The EC clarified that its data is not complete as information may take time to reach it from some polling stations and that its provisional figures do not factor in data from postal voting.
All 90 assembly constituencies in Haryana voted in a single phase today. The votes are scheduled to be counted on October 8.
Assembly polls in Haryana come four months after the conclusion of the general elections, in which the BJP lost five of the ten Lok Sabha seats it held in the state, losing them to the Congress.
Apart from the two national parties the other major parties contesting the assembly polls in Haryana are the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Aazad Samaj Party and the Aam Aadmi Party.
While the INLD and the BSP entered into an alliance before the polls, the JJP – the party of former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala – has allied with the ASP.
However, the general election results indicated that the fight in Haryana would be a bipolar one between the BJP and the Congress.
The BJP won the last two assembly elections in Haryana. Ten years after its first victory in the state in 2014, observers have noted that the party in the state is battling anti-incumbency and infighting.
Salient issues in the run-up to the polls have included the farmers’ protests, the Agnipath scheme and unemployment.
