Assembly polls: Counting begins in five states

Lucknow/Chandigarh/Dehradun/Imphal/Panaji, Mar 6 (ANI): The counting of votes to the assembly elections for the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa began amidst tight security today.

The first results are expected within two hours. All the results will be out by the evening.

The results will decide the fate of candidates in 690 assembly seats --- 403 in UP, 117 seats in Punjab, 70 in Uttarakhand, 60 in Manipur and 40 in Goa.

The voter turnout during this year's assembly elections was recorded an all time high in the recent years, with only Manipur playing a spoiler with a low turnout following incidents of violence.

"Free and fair and totally incident free, except this incident in Manipur which we had already reported. I would like to thank the voters of all the five states for their outstanding performance," Chief Election Commissioner S.Y Qureshi told media here.

In Uttar Pradesh, polling in the seventh phase on Saturday was tentatively 62 percent. This made the overall turnout in the Uttar Pradesh election approximately 60 percent, which is 30.23 percent increase over 2007 turnout that was 46.07 percent.

Punjab saw the turnout of 78.57 percent, which is an increase of 8.43 percent over 2007 turnout that was 72.12 percent. In Uttarakhand, turnout was 67.89 percent, which is 6.15 percent increase over 2007 turnout that was 63.96 percent.

While in Goa, the turnout was 81 percent, which is an all time high and is an increase of 14.87 percent over 2007, when it was 70.51 percent.

Only in Manipur, there was a decrease in turnout from 84.83 percent in 2007 to 79.41 percent this year. (ANI)