First Phase poll so far incident free: Sri Kumar

Bangalore, May 10 (UNI) Except for two or three minor skirmishes, the first phase of polling in the elections for the Karnataka Assembly which began this morning in 89 assembly seats across 11 districts, was incident free, state Inspector General and Director General of Police R Sri Kumar said here today.

Talking to UNI he said till noon, no serious incident was reported and the situation was by and large peaceful.

Referring to Arasikere incident where two groups belonging to Janata Dal(S) and Congress clashed, he said a trivial matter led to unrest but it was immediately put down by the police.

The two groups also exchanged blows resulting in the intervention of police. The Police used mild cane charge to disburse the crowd.

Nobody was arrested, he said.

Mr Kumar said in some of the constituencies there was delay in starting the polling due to technical snags in Electronic Voting Machines. The polling began after the snags were fixed, he said.

He agreed that there were several complaints from the voters that their names were missing from the voters list even though they possessed valid ID cards issued by Election Commission.

Replying to a question the DGP said that in Chickpet assembly segment in the city, police intervened to disburse a crowd which gathered near a temple waiting to cast their votes.

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