In Uttar Pradesh, above 54 percent polling has taken place today for the third phase of three tier local body polls. Voting was held from 7 in the morning and concluded at 6 in the evening. In Jhansi, Chitrakoot and Mirzapur districts, it had begun half an hour earlier and completed at 5.30 pm in view of security reasons. The State Election Commission has claimed that by and large, polling was peaceful.

AIR Allahabad Correspondent reports that at several places, people were seen making protests over their missing names in voter lists. At some places, voting was disturbed due to technical snag in the Electronic Voting Machines but faulty machines were replaced within time. Voting was held in Aligarh Municipal Corporation, 45 Nagar Palika Parishads and 101 Nagar Panchayats spread over 20 districts. A total of 6544 polling booths were set up for more than 54 lakh, 53 thousand voters. Of them about 5000 were identified as sensitive and hyper sensitive and extra measures were taken for these polling booths.

A total of 15,876 candidates including 6047 women were in the fray in this phase. Of them, 10 ward members for Nagar Palika Parishads and Nagar Panchayats have been declared elected unopposed. Nine candidates are in the contest for Mayorship of Aligarh Municipal Corporation.

Directions have also been issued for taking effective measures to prevent post poll violence and for deployment of security forces and Magistrates in trouble prone areas. The Fourth and last phase of election will be held on July 4 in 17 districts.