PANAJI: In a largely incident-free polling for two vacant seats on Wednesday, 75 per cent voters turned up across the two constituencies with Panaji witnessing a polling percentage of 70% and Valpoi 79.80%, which is lesser than the previous general assembly election in February this year of 77.06% and 86.29 respectively.
Addressing media persons, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Kunal informed that the election was largely peaceful, save for the "skirmish" within the Panaji constituency between Congress and BJP supporters.
"We successfully conducted the polling for the Panaji and Valpoi constituencies," Kunal announced after the polling concluded on Wednesday. A total of 7563 male and 7975 female voters turned out to vote in Panaji while in Valpoi 11,652 male and 11,386 female voters voted.
North Goa Collector and District Election Officer Nila Mohanan informed that of all the electronic voting machines only two needed to be replaced after they were detected as having a snag both during the mock poll in Valpoi.
"No EVM or VVPAT was replaced during the actual poll," Mohanan said.
The polling was by and large peaceful with the North Goa Superintendent of Police Chandan Choudhury informing that excepte for the complaints and counter-complaints they received from BJP and Congress parties alleging violations of the model code of conduct, there were no other incidents.
"There were skirmishes in Panaji and police were dispatched to the site. However, the crowd was disbursed without affecting the polling process," Choudhury said.
Polling began at 8 am and progressed steadily with 17.67% voting being recorded in Panaji by 10 am while in Valpoi it was 20.41%.
By 12 noon the polling percentage in Panaji was 34.65 while that of Valpoi 39.82. By 2 pm the percentage in Panaji was 48.53 and in Valpoi 54.85.
The ballot boxes have been stored in the strong room at the Old GMC Complex in Panaji where they will remain until Monday morning, the day counting starts.
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THE TWO VACANT SEATS
* The Panaji bypoll was necessitated after BJP's sitting MLA, Siddharth Kuncolienkar, vacated the seat for Parrikar, as the latter has to get elected to the Assembly within six months of becoming the chief minister
* The byelection in Valpoi became necessary after the former health minister joined the BJP after the Parrikar-led government won a crucial floor test in March this year
