A commando keeps vigil at a panchayat poll booth in Gaya on Monday. An average 60.25 per cent of polling was recorded in the third phase of the ongoing polls, marred by incidents of booth grabbing, firing and violent clashes. State chief election commissioner (CEC) Ashok Kumar Chauhan said some antisocial elements tried to vitiate the poll process at a few places but no major incident of violence was reported from any of the 13,307 polling booths where elections were held on Monday for 941 panchayats spread over 62 blocks of the state. A total of 420 people were arrested and 47 vehicles seized during the polling, the CEC revealed. The police also seized an airgun, 300 live cartridges, Rs 9,800 cash and bottles of liquor. The authorities had to intervene at some booths to restart polling that was stopped due to disturbances, Chauhan added. He said 16 members of a polling party and police personnel were arrested from Aurangabad's Obra block on the charge of helping a candidate, Abhimanyu Sharma, at booth numbers 63, 64 and 65 and a detailed report has been sought from the district magistrate and the superintendent of police. Polling could not be held at 12 booths under Bahadurpur block in Darbhanga district due to mismatch of symbols of candidates. An incident of booth capturing was reported from Singhia block in Samastipur district, while some people tried to disrupt polling at booth number 387 under Narkatiaganj block in West Champaran district. Reports of clashes also came in from two booths under Paroo block in Muzaffarpur, one booth under Saren panchayat in Gaya district, and one booth each under Runnisaidpur block in Sitamarhi district and Gopalpur in Bhagalpur district. The state election commission will take a decision on re-poll on over 40 polling booths after the receipt of final reports of the district magistrates concerned. Re-poll was ordered on 45 polling booths in the first phase and 19 booths in the second phase on the recommendations of the district magistrates. Text by Ramashankar, picture by Suman