First Phase poll so far incidents free: Sri Kumar

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

Speaking to UNI he said till noon, there were not a single serious incident 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 went to the extent of exchange blows resulting into the intervention of police. The Police used mild cane charge to disburse the crowd. Nobody had been arrested, he said.

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

He agreed that there were several complaints from the voters that their names were missing in 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 crowd who were gathered near a temple waiting to cast their votes.

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