Gujarat Assembly elections 2017: 47.4% voting recorded till 2 pm

Gandhinagar: Voter turnout of 47.20 percent was recorded till 2 pm in the second and final phase of Gujarat Assembly elections 2017 on Thursday.

The voter turnout was 39% till 12 pm, according to the election commission figures. 

47.40% voter turnout till 2 pm in phase two of #GujaratElection2017 : BB Swain, Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer pic.twitter.com/OAMfIUXm1L — ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2017

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP veteran LK Advani, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP chief Amit Shah were among the top leaders who cast their votes in the second and final phase of polls today.

The voting will continue till 5 pm in more than 25,000 polling stations for 93 constituencies spread across 14 districts in north and central Gujarat.

A total of 851 candidates were in the fray and over 2.22 lakh people took part in the election to decide their fate.

Ahead of the polling, a tight security cover was put in place to ensure free and fair voting and to avoid any untoward incident. 

Though voting was largely peaceful, there were several complaints made to the Election Commission against the electronic voting machines in and around Vadodara city.

At many places, the polling was halted due to such malfunctioning. A glitch in the EVM in Gujarat's Chhota Udaipur earlier in the day prevented voters from casting their votes for about fifty minutes.

The BJP fielded 93 candidates for this phase, while Congress fielded only 91.

Interestingly, the voter turnout in the first phase of the polls was 68 percent.

The results of the crucial assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will be declared on December 18.

In the 2012 assembly polls, the BJP won 115 seats in Gujarat, while the Congress bagged 61.