Hisar, Haryana:
The polling process was peacefully completed at 5 p.m. in the crucial Hisar Lok Sabha by-election in Haryana on Thursday, where Team Anna has asked people not to vote for the Congress. Over 70 percent voting was expected, said officials.
"No untoward or violent incident was reported from Hisar. The polling was totally peaceful and we are expecting the voters turnout to cross 70 percent mark.
"At 4 p.m., it was 62 percent and maximum number of voters come out during the last hour of voting. It was 69.3 percent during 2009 by-election," said chief electoral officer Sumita Misra, while talking to reporters.
Counting of votes will take place on October 17.
"There were just couple of technical glitches reported from two different places and EVMs (Electronically Voting Machines) were immediately replaced there," said Misra.
Hisar constituency comprises nine assembly segments -- namely Adampur, Uklana, Narnaul, Hansi, Barwala, Hisar, Nalwa, Uchana Kalan and Bhawani Khera.
The three main contenders for the seat are Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), the son of sitting MP and former chief minister Bhajan Lal, whose death caused the by-poll; Indian National Lok Dal's (INLD) Ajay Chautala, the son of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala; and three-time former MP Jai Prakash of the Congress.
Bishnoi has the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for this election.
The election hit the national spotlight after Hazare and members of his team asked people to vote against the Congress as part of the fight against corruption and misgovernance.
There was heavy security to ensure the smooth conduct of voting; for the first time video-filming of all 1,506 polling centres was done.
A total of 340 polling booths had been declared hyper-sensitive while 387 polling booths were declared sensitive by the election commission.
Besides local police, around 40 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed to prevent any untoward incident.
There are 1,332,000 voters - 729,857 men and 602,323 women - who will decide the fate of the aspirants for this seat, which fell vacant in June this year following the death of Bhajan Lal.