Around 70% voter turnout in Karnataka
New Delhi, May 12: Around 70 per cent voters exercised their franchise for Karnataka Assembly polls on Saturday, the Election Commission said here.
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said the figure was likely to go up as data was still being collated from various polling stations where people queued up beyond 6 p.m. when the voting was supposed to end.
"As of now, the total turnout figure received is 70 per cent. However, we expect this number to increase, and hope it surpasses that of the previous elections," he said.
The Election Commission said the polling percentage may breach the 71.4 per cent mark recorded in the 2013 Assembly election in Karnataka which has nearly 5.07 crore voters.
Sinha said the highest polling of 76 per cent was recorded in Chikkaballapura and Ramanagara while Bengaluru Urban had the lowest turnout at 48 per cent.
Some 2,654 candidates, including 216 women, are in the fray for 222 seats out of a total 224. Voting was deferred in two constituencies.
Counting of votes will take place on May 15.
Sinha said the "seizure of cash, liquor and other goods was to the tune of Rs 186 crore, which was six times more than the Lok Sabha and eight times more than the Assembly election in 2013".
He said there 26 cases of paid news reported across the state, out of which 15 cases have been proved as paid news.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
