Polling in Rae Bareli begins at brisk note

Rae Bareli, May 8: Polling in Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency began this morning on a brisk note amid tight security.

Voters, includiong several women had lined up outside polling booths an hour before the polling process began at 0700 hrs. Most of the voters claimed that they wanted to exercise their franchise before noon to avoid the heat.

During the first four hours, over 8 per cent of the voters had cast their votes. There are a total of 13,61,411 voters in the Lok Sabha constituency where AICC president Sonia Gandhi is seeking a re-election. Women amount to a little less then 50 per cent of the total electorate.

Meanwhile, Rae Bareli police chief B D Paulson told reporters that police have placed about 200 trouble makers under house arrest.

Ms Gandhi's daughter and election agent Priyanka Vadra hit the road early today and toured polling booths at Bachrawan assembly segment. At Raja Mau village, she managed to give reporters a slip who were tailing her cavallade. Talking to reporters she said the queues outside the booths indicated people's enthusiasm. She said electronic voting maschines (EVMs) at some of the booths were not functioning ''but officials were rectifying the flaws.'' Samajwadi Party candidate Rajkumar Chaudhury visited the polling booth set up at the Government Inter-college. He too spoke about the faulty EVMs.

To a poser, he said while the district administration had allowed Ms Vadra 16 security vehicles, his request for security was still pending.

The voting will continue till 1700 hours while the counting would take place on May 11.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is seeking a re-election from here following her resignation on the office of profit controversy. On March 23, Ms Gandhi had resigned from the Lok Sabha seat and from the chairpersonship of National Advisory Council (NAC) after the Opposition, mainly the BJP and Samajwadi Party, charged her with holding offices of profit while being a Lok Sabha member.

The Congress president is tipped to win the elections.

Yesterday, Ms Vadra had forwarded a letter to the Election Commission (EC) alleging threat to voters by ministers of the ruling Samajwadi Party. A similar alegation of Congress' efforts of indulging in booth capturing was levelled by the ruling SP.

Congress had claimed despite EC notice to all leaders, who were not voters of the constituency, to leave Rae Bareli by 1700 hrs yesterday, several ruling party ministers and legislators had stayed back in the constituency to cajole and browbeat the electorate.

The list handed over to EC included names of UP ministers Balram Yadav, Lallan Yadav, Ram Govind Chaudhury, J P Yadav, Surendra Patel and Rakesh Verma.

On Friday night, the EC had asked all such campaigners, including Ms Gandhi's campaign manager Rahul Gandhi to leave the constituency as soon as campaigning ended.

The letter also claimed that MLCs Rakesh Rana and Naresh Uttam were present in the constituency despite EC orders.

The SP too complained that Congress was planning booth capturing to help the AICC President.

Despite torrid weather conditions, electioneering had been quite hectic. To beat the heat, leaders of various parties and candidates fan out into interior villages and the stress is more on street corner meetings and door-to-door contacts.

Congress star campaigner Rahul Gandhi has forged ahead of others in wooing the voters by touring remote and dusty villages, appealing to women in particular to turn out in large numbers and vote for his mother Sonia Gandhi. She herself addressed series of election meetings across the constituency during her two day visit to the constituency.

UNI

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