Chandigarh:
Nearly 69 per cent of over 17 lakh voters on Sunday cast their ballots in elections to seven municipal corporations and two municipal committees in Haryana where polling ended peacefully.
Polling was peaceful and no untoward incident was reported from the municipal corporations of Ambala, Hisar, Karnal, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar, State Election Commissioner Dharam Vir told reporters.
In the case of the two municipal committees, the poll percentage was 90.62 per cent in Farukhnagar and 87 per cent in Kalanaur.
The highest voter turnout of 73.63 per cent was recorded in Yamunanagar MC followed by 72.45 per cent in Karnal, 67.74 per cent in Rohtak and 67.13 per cent in Hisar.
Voters in three villages in Panipat district abstained from voting as they wanted their villages to be excluded from the ambit of Municipal Corporation and kept under panchayat.
A total of 1,686 candidates were in fray for the 144 wards of seven corporations. Of the total 1,696 polling stations, 251 had been declared sensitive and 335 hyper- sensitive.
Heavy police deployment had been made to maintain law and order at the polling stations and sensitive areas, he said.
While counting of votes for the Committees will take place this evening, the votes polled for the Corporations would be counted on June 4.
Meanwhile, a high drama was witnessed at a polling booth in a village of Karnal district, when kin of a physically challenged youth, who was found murdered early today, placed the body near the booth demanding arrest of the culprits.
They alleged that the youth had been murdered and his body was dumped at some distance close to his home.
They also alleged that some unidentified persons had earlier threatened him and some members of his community against voting in favour of the particular candidate, sources said.
Later, senior police official intervened in the matter.
They assured the protesters that the culprits will soon be arrested after which they relented and the voting at the booth was restarted.