Mumbai : The 49 constituencies across six states and two Union Territories in phase 5th of Lok Sabha Elections have registered approximate 60% voter turnout, the Election Commission of India said on Tuesday.
The figures for the other states/UTs, as of 11.30 p.m., were 69.62 per cent for Ladakh (1 seat), 67.59 per cent in Odisha (5 seats as well as 35 Assembly seats), 63.07 per cent in Jharkhand (3 seats), 57.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh (14 seats), 56.73 per cent in J&K (1 seat), and 54.85 per cent in Bihar.
Election officials of the UT said that it could touch 59 per cent.
Around 9 crore voters, braving the heat in several parts of the country, headed for the polling booths through the day after polls opened at 7 a.m. to decide the fates of 695 candidates.
However, the Election Commission rued that constituencies in cities like Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, and Lucknow continued the trend of urban apathy as noticed in the 2019 polls. On the other hand, voters and leaders also complained of the slow pace of polling which deterred some voters.
However, in Mumbai, Bollywood and, to a lesser extent, television stars turned up to exercise their franchise, including Amitabh Bachchan, who showed up with wife Jaya, Deepika-Ranveer, Sanjay Dutt, Kajol, Tabu, and Shah Rukh Khan, who happily posed for the shutterbugs with his wife Gauri and son Aryan.
Most of the stars were happy to simply flash their inked index finger, but some, notably Dharmendra, Akshay Kumar, Manoj Bajpayee, and Rajkummar Rao gave statements to the media, urging Mumbaikars to vote.
Top industrialists and corporate leaders, including Ratan Tata, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra, and Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, accompanied by daughter Ananya Birla, also cast their vote.
The fifth phase may have been the smallest in number but contained a large number of high-profile seats from where top Union Ministers, including Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Piyush Goyal (Mumbai North) and Smriti Irani (Amethi) and leaders of national and regional parties, including Rahul Gandhi (Raebareli), Omar Abdullah (Baramulla), and Chirag Paswan (Hajipur) were contesting.
With the end of the fifth phase, polling has been completed in 428 Lok Sabha seats across 25 states/UTs with Maharashtra and Ladakh joining those where the poll process has concluded.
The next and penultimate phase, comprising 58 seats, is slated to be held on May 25, with Haryana and Delhi joining in for a single-phase polling.