Noida: Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar were two districts with the lowest voter turnout in the first phase of assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh that concluded on Thursday, with Noida seat having just 50.1 per cent electors at polls, according to officials. The state's average voter turnout was recorded at 60.17 per cent, while the average in Ghaziabad stood at 54.77 per cent and in Gautam Buddh Nagar at 56.73 per cent, the Election Commission said.
There are five assembly seats in Ghaziabad, which has around 29 lakh registered voters. The district also has the partial assembly seat of Dhaulana, which technically falls in Hapur district. Of them, the voter turnout was highest in Modinagar (67.25 per cent) followed by Loni (60.5 per cent), Muradnagar (60.2 per cent), Ghaziabad (54.2 per cent) and Sahibabad (50.3 per cent), official figures showed.
In 2017, Modinagar had 64.75 per cent voter turnout followed by Loni (60.1 per cent), Muradnagar (60.4 per cent), Ghaziabad (53.2 per cent) and Sahibabad (49.2 per cent).
Gautam Buddh Nagar, which has more than 16 lakh registered voters across the district, has three assembly seats of Noida, Dadri and Jewar.
Jewar, predominantly a rural area, topped the district with 66.6 per cent voter turnout followed by Dadri (59.7 per cent) and Noida (50.1 per cent), the EC figures showed. In 2017, Jewar had recorded 65.4 per cent voter turnout followed by Dadri (60.1 per cent) and Noida (48.5 per cent), according to corresponding official figures.
Overall 91 candidates were in fray from the eight assembly seats in the two districts of Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar.
The elections were held in 58 assembly constituencies spanning 11 districts in western part of the state on Thursday, with over 2.28 crore registered voters, of which only 60.17 per cent turned up at poll booths, according to the EC.
In percentage of voter turnout, Agra recorded 60.33 per cent polling, Aligarh (60.49), Baghpat (61.35), Bulandshahr (60.52), Hapur (60.50), Mathura (63.28), Meerut (60.91), Muzaffarnagar (65.34) and Shamli (69.42), it showed.
Earlier, Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Suhas L Yathiraj had urged voters to go out and vote "like our lives and the world depend on it, because they do".
The second phase of the seven-phase UP Assembly elections will take place on February 14.
