Rajkot: The oldest voter in Rajkot, 126-year-old Chandravadiya Ajiben Sidabhai, cast her vote on Saturday during the first phase of Gujarat elections.
According to her voter ID card, her date of birth is 1 January 1891.
She has voted in every election in Gujarat since 1960, as per media reports. Chandravadiya hails from Upleta town is a mother of six daughters and a son.
A special arrangement is said to have been made in the booth for her so that she didn't have to stand in long queue.
Sixty-eight percent polling was recorded in the first phase of polls in 89 Assembly seats in Gujarat where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress' soon-to-be president Rahul Gandhi are locked in a bitter, high-stakes political battle after a 22-year BJP reign.
The final figure was likely to go up since people were still standing in queues outside polling centres after the close of voting at 5 pm, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said in Delhi.
Even as the polling passed off peacefully, Opposition leaders raised apprehensions about electronic voting machine (EVM) tampering, a charge rejected by the EC.
Sixty-eight percent of the 2.1 crore voters exercised their franchise, Sinha said.
Responding to a series of questions on reports of EVM tampering, Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Jain said one complaint filed by a Congress candidate in Porbandar regarding his cell phone getting connected to an EVM through 'bluetooth' was found to be incorrect.
The complaint was lodged by senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia.
Jain said experts found that the cell phone was actually connected to the bluetooth of a polling agent's mobile.
The EVM has "no receptors" and cannot be connected to any other device except the control unit and the paper trail machine, he said, adding it has no bluetooth or USB (pen drive in common parlance) port.
The second phase of polling in 93 seats will be held on December 14 while the counting of votes is scheduled on December 18.
(With PTI inputs)
