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New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) The first phase of the Assembly elections for 10 Assembly constituencies spread over four districts in Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a voters turnout of over 55 per cent, Deputy Election Commissioner(DEC) R Bhattarcharya announced today.

Briefing newspersons here, Mr Bhattacharya said the four districts are Leh, Kargil, Bandipura and Poonch.

The polling was, by and large, peaceful, except for some minor skirmishes in seven polling stations, out of the 1,066 polling booths that went into polling.

The snow-bound Gurez constituency recorded the highest turnout of over 74.4 per cent.

In today's poll, a total of over six lakh electorate were enlisted for casting their votes.

The Election Commission has, yesterday, taken strong action against the polling team at Mander, who stayed with the relative of a contesting candidate. The entire party has been taken into custody and further action has been ordered.

Responding to questions that despite of there being a poll boycott, the polling percentage is very good, the DEC said it is for the people to make value judgement.

In the polling station of Bandipura, the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was broken after only 112 votes were being cast, he said.

The polling percentage would further go up, as the details are yet to reach.

UNI/BKS SBC PK BST1935