Thaindian News

Lucknow, March 17 (IANS) After conducting a historic and successful state assembly polls, which saw an unprecedented rise in the voter turn out, Election Commission officials, including poll panel chief S.Y. Quraishi, will now give tips to their Jordanian counterparts.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Uttar Pradesh Umesh Sinha flew to Jordan late Friday night to participate in a four-day conference on Electoral Reforms.

Sinha is being joined by Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, D.G. (ECI) Akshay Raut and legal advisor Mehndi Ratta in the four-day foreign trip.

Before leaving for the global meet, Sinha told IANS that the poll panel officials looked forward to sharing their experiences with the “bigger global audiences” on the recently concluded state assembly polls.

“Dr. Quraishi is heading the contingent and am sure that our fellow officials in Jordan would only get richer by the vast and varied experience of the Election Commission officials,” Sinha further added.

The ECI has been credited with not only conducting the state assembly polls in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, peacefully, but for also ensuring that the voting percentage increased manifold.

Voters in Uttar Pradesh set an all-time high record in polling percentage in the seven-phased staggered polls. With 59.16 percent aggregate polling in the 2012 state assembly elections, the percentage surpassed all past records (Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha).

In 1997, the highest vote percentage was 57.13 percent in the assembly polls.

Woman participation in the 2012 state assembly election also soared to a new high, with 59.80 percent women casting their votes. This was also an all-time high, the past highest being 41.92 percent.

The women also beat their male counterparts in terms of voting for the first time as the male voters figure stood at 57.77 percent only. The past highest of women voters was 50.85 percent.

In the 2007 state assembly elections while only one district of UP polled more than 60 percent votes, this time the figure rose to 37 districts.

The elections also witnessed major cities in the state shrugging off the apathy towards voting. In Lucknow, the voting percentage grew from 29.32 percent in 2007 to 53.16 percent in 2012. In Allahabad, the percentage of urban voters grew from 30.86 percent in 2007 to 46.66 percent in 2012.

Ghaziabad grew from a low of 33.03 percent to 53.89 percent in urban pockets. Meerut jumped from an average 41.71 percent in 2007 to 61.2 percent.