Voters queue up braving rain at a polling booth in Shahjahanpur on Wednesday. - PHOTO: PTI

LUCKNOW : The third phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh passed off peacefully on Wednesday. Around 51 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the 57 Assembly constituencies in the ten districts of Bareilly, Moradabad and Kanpur divisions.

The polling percentage in the 57 constituencies in 2002 was 59. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh from Gunnaur and Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohammed Azam Khan from Rampur were among the candidates in the race in this round.

A piquant situation arose at polling station No. 153 in Kaimganj constituency in Farrukhabad district when Congress candidate Louis Khurshid and her husband, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Salman Khurshid, found their names missing in the voters' list.Ms. Khurshid is the sitting MLA from Kaimganj. Mr. Khurshid demanded that the election in the constituency be countermanded.

Chief Electoral Officer Anuj Kumar Bishnoi said the couple's names figured in the final voters' list published on January 15 this year but were not in the list now with the Presiding Officer.

Mr. Bishnoi said the Special Observer of the Election Commission and Deputy Election Commissioner J. P. Prakash visited the polling centre and the matter was being investigated.

The Returning Officer and the District Election Officer had been asked to submit their reports.

The Election Commission received nearly 20 complaints during the day from different places. Most of these related to missing names and photo identity cards.

The CEO said the electronic voting machines at 11 polling booths developed snags but were soon rectified.

An Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) jawan, Madan Mohan, reportedly committed suicide inside a polling booth at Panderi in Jyotiba Phule Nagar district early in the morning.

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