India will be Viksit only when it is educated: Kapil Sibal after casting his vote in Delhi polls

New Delhi [India], February 5 (ANI): Senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal cast his vote in the Delhi Assembly polls on Wednesday. He appealed to the voters to exercise their franchise.

“The message is quite simple, that every citizen of this country should come and vote. Because if you live in a community, you must participate to ensure that the person or the party you are voting for serves the community. If you don’t vote, you can’t then blame the government. This is the duty of every citizen to exercise their franchise,” Sibal told reporters.

“I heard someone say – Vote for Viksit Bharat. I think India will be Viksit only when it is educated. India is not even educated right now. It is not right for an officer to say this because, at this tim,e this amounts to campaigning…Until the EC itself takes measures, the purity that should be there in our politics will remain blemished. So, this is not good for democracy,” he added.

After a sluggish turnout in the first two hours of the polling, a voter turnout of 19.95 per cent was recorded till 11 am on Wednesday in the single-phase Delhi assembly elections, as per the Election Commission of India.

According to the ECI, the highest turnout was recorded in the North East district with 24.87 per cent among all districts of the national capital followed by the Shahdara district with 23.30 per cent while the Central district recorded the lowest turnout of 16.46 per cent.

The South West district recorded a turnout of 21.90 per cent, New Delhi 16.80 per cent, East 20.03 per cent, North 18.63 per cent, North West 19.75 per cent, South 19.75 per cent, South East 19.66 per cent and West 17.67 per cent, as of 11 am.

Meanwhile, the Milkipur assembly constituency recorded a turnout of 29.86 per cent in the bye-assembly elections. The Erode (East) constituency of Tamil Nadu witnessed a turnout of 26.03 per cent as of 11 am in the bypolls.

Polling for 70 assembly seats of Delhi and by-polls for two seats, one each of Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh began on Wednesday morning. Voting commenced at 7.00 am today.

Voters cast their ballots amid tight security in all seats.