Kerala, Assam and Puducherry, with a combined electorate of more than 5.3 crore, saw high turnouts and fairly peaceful polling in Assembly elections on Thursday.

At 7.30pm, the voter turnout was 85.43 per cent in Assam, 89.83 per cent in Puducherry and 78.07 per cent in Kerala, going by the ECINet app. While these figures marked historical highs in Assam and Puducherry, Kerala too appeared poised to break its past record, election officials said.

The electorates in all three Assembly polls have shrunk since the previous polls. Kerala and Puducherry underwent a special intensive revision of their rolls while Assam had a special revision, which deleted many voters.

Kerala saw a drop of 3.61 lakh voters and Puducherry that of 54,196. Their turnouts in 2021 were 73.9 per cent and 81.66 per cent, respectively. If the same numbers of voters who had voted in 2021 voted this time, the projected turnout figures would have been 74.88 per cent and 86.36 per cent, respectively.

Thursday’s figures were still higher, marking an absolute increase in the numbers of those who voted.

Among the states voting in this round of Assembly polls, surveys have shown the highest anti-incumbency in Kerala, where the Left Democratic Front has enjoyed a rare two straight terms in power.

Kerala recorded its highest voter turnout ever in 1960 — at 85.72 per cent — a record that appeared likely to be broken with many voters still in the queues when this copy was filed, because of slower-than-usual polling and a very hot afternoon.

Election Commission officials expressed optimism over the voting pattern, with 2.03 crore voters out of a total 2.71 crore having already voted by 5pm. Right from 7am, when the voting started across
Kerala’s 140 Assembly constituencies, long queues were seen in almost all 30,495 polling booths.

In the outgoing Assembly, the LDF held 99 seats and the Congress-led UDF, 41. The BJP is striving to reopen its account after the “successful” 2016 Assembly polls that saw veteran O. Rajagopal emerge as the party’s first ever MLA in the state, from the Nemom constituency.

The Thiruvananthapuram constituency, from where Kerala BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar is contesting, recorded 80.62 per cent polling.

Bogus voters were reported from several constituencies in the northern districts. Kannur and the coastal area of Perumathura in Thiruvananthapuram witnessed
poll violence.

At Koorkencherry in Thrissur district, Akshara, a young mother, had to spend five hours inside the polling booth. The presiding officer had initially refused to let her vote as her left index finger was bandaged.

Finally, Akshara cast her vote at 6.20pm. She was accompanied by her husband and a toddler son.

Rule 49K of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, allows a presiding officer to ink any other finger of the left hand if the index finger is “missing”. However, the rule does not specify what a presiding officer has to do if the finger exists but is injured. In practice, 49K has been applied to cases like Akshara’s in the past.

Puducherry chief minister N. Rangasamy came to vote in his signature Yamaha RX100 to his polling booth in Thattanchavady. The 75-year old member of the All India N.R. Congress, aiming for a fourth term, maintained perfect balance at second gear while threading his way through the crowd outside.

Assam witnessed a clash between Assam Jatiya Party and BJP supporters in Khowang, Dibrugarh. Police in Karbi Anglong filed an FIR after a video of people voting in Diphu went viral. Filming votes being cast on a voting machine is prohibited as it violates the secrecy of the vote.

Four Assembly by-elections in Karnataka, Nagaland and Tripura too passed peacefully.