Repolling in three booths peaceful

Repolling in three booths in the State — two in Kushtagi, Ballari, and one in Hebbal, Bengaluru, — went off peacefully on Monday.

Hebbal, the booth where repolling was ordered after the VVPAT machine recorded votes faultily, saw 53.32% turnout. The two booths in Kushtagi, where there was a mix up of voters, recorded a turnout of 78.1% and 72.9%.

In Hebbal, 772 voted out of 1,444 voters registered for the booth. The voting began with serpentine queues on Monday morning, but the lines soon ebbed completely. Voters were seen complaining about repolling being held on a weekday.

There was also high drama at the booth as BJP candidate Y.A. Narayanaswamy held a protest alleging that Congress candidate B.A. Suresh was holed up in an apartment nearby distributing money. The police got Mr. Suresh out of the apartment and made him leave the premises. Mr. Suresh said the BJP had turned desperate and was making baseless allegations.

As the polling came to an end, Madhuri, 73, a voter, had to return disappointed. Speaking to the media, she said she had come thrice on Saturday to cast her vote. And on Monday, she was held up at home owing to renovation work and came just a minute after 6 p.m. She even broke down saying this probably could be her last vote.

In Kushtagi, repolling was necessitated as voters of booth number 21 cast their vote in booth number 20 on May 12. Both the booths were side by side. At the end of the day, it was found that in booth number 20, which had a total of 605 voters, polling had crossed 100% with around 35 voters from the adjacent booth voting here. On noticing this anomaly, the matter was referred to the Election Commission, which instructed repolling.