Voters show their passports at a polling booth in Guwahati on Monday. (PTI)

April 3: For a state that had previously braved the threat of militant bullets to vote, today’s pre-monsoon showers were only a minor deterrent.

An estimated 68 per cent of Assam’s electorate turned up at polling booths across the 65 constituencies that went to polls today, the trickle of voters in the first half of the rain-marred day turning into a torrent in the afternoon.

Dhemaji, the scene of one of the worst militant attacks in 2004, led the turnout stakes with 78 per cent polling. It helped that the banned Ulfa is at present engaged in a peace process with Delhi.

The only glitch in an otherwise successful day for the Election Commission, which spared no effort to ensure free and fair polling, was the boycott by development-starved voters registered with nine polling stations.

State chief electoral officer J.P. Prakash said six of the nine polling stations were in Hailakandi and one each in Jagiroad, Dholai and Margherita constituencies. He complimented the people for braving the rain and turning out in large numbers to vote.

Additional chief electoral officer R.C. Jain said later that the percentage could “go up as reports are still coming in from some places”.

He said repolling might be considered in some booths where electronic voting machines malfunctioned. “The Election Commission will take the decision,” he said.

Deputy election commissioner R. Bhattacharya said during a media briefing in Delhi that polling was “by and large peaceful and incident-free”. He said the only major incident was reported from Chabua constituency of Dibrugarh district, where miscreants damaged an electronic voting machine. A decision on repolling will be taken after receiving reports from poll observers, he said.

In the Barak Valley district of Cachar, where deployment of security personnel was the highest, a suspected militant of the Dima Halam Daogah fired in the air near a polling booth and fled. The sound of firing near the polling booth under Lakhipur constituency did trigger panic among voters, but security personnel promptly brought the situation under control.

By the time polling drew to a close at 4 pm, the electoral fate of several political titans from the ruling Congress and the Opposition ? the list includes chief minister Tarun Gogoi ? was sealed. Elections to the remaining 61 Assembly seats are slated for April 10.

Titabor, the chief minister’s constituency, recorded over 70 per cent polling. The much-publicised poll boycott by workers of five tea gardens turned out to be a mere threat. Admittedly disenchanted with the ruling Congress, the tea tribes had been making noises about teaching the party a lesson. However, the chief minister claimed recently that his party had made peace with the community.

PCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita said the Congress would win over 50 per cent of the seats for which polling was conducted in the first phase. The other parties in the fray ? AGP, BJP and the minority-dominated Assam United Democratic Front ? made similar claims.