Maharashtra records 58.22 pc turnout, Independent candidate dies of heart attack in Beed

Mumbai: Maharashtra recorded 58.22 per cent polling in 288 Assembly constituencies till 5 p.m. on Wednesday. The Naxal-affected Gadchiroli district has reported a record 65.88 per cent turnout.

As the voting was underway, an Independent Balasaheb Shinde from the Beed constituency died of a heart attack. When Shinde was approaching the polling station, he suffered a heart attack and died on the spot.

A pale of gloom has fallen on the Shinde family and the activists of the candidate Shinde are also shocked by this incident.

Ahmednagar has reported 61.95 per cent voting, Akola - 56.16 per cent, Amravati -58.48 per cent, Aurangabad- 60.83 per cent, Beed - 60.62 per cent, Bhandara- 65.88 per cent, Buldhana-62.84 per cent, Chandrapur- 64.48 per cent, Dhule - 59.75 per cent, Gadchiroli-69.63 per cent, Gondia -65.09 per cent, Hingoli - 61.18 per cent, Jalgaon - 54.69 per cent, Jalna- 64.17 per cent, Kolhapur- 67.97 per cent, Latur- 61.43 per cent, Mumbai City- 49.07 per cent, Mumbai suburbs-51.76 per cent, Nagpur - 56.06 per cent, Nanded - 55.88 per cent, Nandurbar- 63.72 per cent, Nashik -59.85 per cent, Osmanabad- 58.59 per cent, Palghar- 59.31 per cent, Parbhani- 62.73 per cent, Pune - 54.09 per cent, Raigad - 61.01 per cent, Ratnagiri- 60.35 per cent, Sangli - 63.28 per cent, Satara - 64.16 per cent, Sindhudurg - 62.06 per cent, Solapur -57.09 per cent, Thane - 49.76 per cent, Wardha - 63.50 per cent, Washim -57.42 per cent and Yavatmal - 61.22 per cent.

As the polling began at 7 a.m., the state election machinery had received several complaints with regard to the non-functioning of the EVMs. The voting machine from Vikram High School in Kolhapur stopped functioning after it reported technical snags. Similar complaints were reported from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar while in Akola East the EVM was not functioning on polling booth number 221 for 50 minutes that halted the voting.

The voters had to wait for a while after EVM reported technical fault at the Vidyavardhini College polling booth from Dhule city. In the Boisar Assembly constituency, the power failure brought the voting to a halt causing a lot of inconvenience to the voters and the polling staff. Nearly 20 polling machines including VVPAT and control units stopped functioning between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. at various polling booths from Jalgaon district.

In the Nandgaon constituency, an Independent Sameer Bhujbal and Shiv Sena nominee Suhas Kande came face to face for a while. Bhujbal uploaded a video wherein Kande was reportedly threatening him that “your murder today is fixed.” The police had to disperse the activists from both groups. Bhujbal alleged that Kande had reportedly kept sugarcane-cutting farmers at one site and they were brought there for polling.

In Wardha, the NCP-SP spokesperson Nitesh Karale was beaten up by a mob. The NSP-SP had accused BJP activists of beating and manhandling Karale. In the Ashti constituency, the supporters of BJP nominee Suresh Dhas and NCP-SP nominee Mehboob Shaikh engaged in a verbal duel that ultimately led to manhandling and roughing up of a few activists.