New Delhi, Feb 5: Turnout in the Delhi Assembly election touched 46.55 per cent till 3 p.m. as voting on the 70 seats remained largely peaceful on Wednesday, an official said.

There was a brief commotion at a polling booth in Seelampur where a bogus voter was caught casting a vote on someone else’s identity. The incident occurred at Aryan Public School, Booth Level Officer, Seelampur, Gayatri, said.

BJP nominee from the seat, Anil Gaur, accused the rival Congress and the AAP of bringing 300-400 fake voters from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

Special Commissioner of Police D.C. Srivastava confirmed getting complaints of attempted bogus voting. “Two persons have been detained on the allegation of bogus voting. The facts are being verified.”

Till 3 p.m., Mustafabad seat recorded the highest turnout of 56.12 per cent followed by Seelampur with 54.29 per cent.

The New Delhi seat of AAP convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recorded a turnout of 44.83 per cent by 3 p.m. The Delhi Cantonment seat recorded 45.90 per cent voting.

Chief Minister Atishi’s constituency recorded a turnout of 41.17 per cent till 3 p.m. Manish Sisodia’s Jungpura seat recorded 44.07 per cent voting till 3 p.m.

Other turnout trends till 3 p.m. were: Sangam Vihar 48.95 per cent, Badarpur 44.79 per cent, Tughlakabad 44.20 per cent, Okhla 42.70 per cent, Kasturba Nagar 41 per cent, Malviya Nager 41.77 per cent, Chhatarpur 50.08 per cent, Ambedkar Nagar 45.50 per cent, Deoli 44.98 per cent and Mehrauli 40.34 per cent.

AAP Jangpura nominee and former deputy Delhi chief minister Manish Sisodia alleged that rival parties were giving money to voters, a charge which was dismissed by police as ‘unsubstantiated’.

His party colleague and AAP MP Raghav Chadha alleged that at many polling booths in the New Delhi constituency, the party’s polling agents and their relievers faced problems in entry.

Earlier, former Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal and his wife gave up their car and walked down to their polling booth. Both of them escorted their parents, both in wheelchairs, to the booth at a school close to their Ferozeshah Road residence.

Kejriwal’s BJP rival Parvesh Verma performed religious rituals on the Yamuna bank before proceeding to cast his vote with his wife and daughter at the Nirman Bhawan booth.

Congress candidate from New Delhi Sandeep Dikshit cast his vote at a polling booth on Rahim Khan Road and later accompanied voters from the party and members of the Gandhi family – Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – to their respective booths.

The turnout in the 2020 Delhi Assembly election stood at 62.82 per cent, 4.65 per cent lower than 67.47 per cent in 2015. In 2013, the turnout was 66.02 per cent, 8.42 per cent higher than 2008’s 57.6 per cent.

In 2020, the AAP won 62 out of 70 seats with a vote share of 53.57 per cent. The BJP won eight seats with a 38.51 per cent vote share. The Congress got 4.26 per cent of votes and others polled 3.66 per cent votes.

Amritsar, Feb 5: A US military aircraft carrying the first batch of 104 illegal Indian immigrants, with the highest number of 33 each from Haryana and Gujarat, reached Amritsar in Punjab on Wednesday.

A total of 30 deportees were residents of Punjab. The US military C-17 aircraft landed at Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport amid tight security.

Three each from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra while two from Chandigarh. The deportees include 25 women and 12 minors, with the youngest passenger being just four years old.

Forty-eight people are below the age of 25. The flight, which took off from Texas on Tuesday, also carried 11 crew members and 45 US officials overseeing the deportation process.

A senior Punjab official said that most deportees from the state belong to Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Patiala, Mohali and Sangrur. Some of them had entered the US illegally, while others overstayed their visas.

They were deported on the C-17 plane that took off from San Antonio, Texas. This was the first round of deportation of illegal immigrants that coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington next week.

This will be PM Modi’s first visit after Donald Trump took over as US President for the second time. External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar had earlier said that New Delhi is open to the “legitimate return” of Indian nationals living illegally abroad, including in the US.

India has expressed readiness to accept these migrants, post-verification, EAM Jaishankar conveyed this to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month.

“For the first time in history, we are locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came,” President Trump told reporters last month.

Punjab NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has expressed disappointment over the US decision to deport the Indians, saying they have contributed to the US economy and should have been granted permanent residency, instead of being deported.

Approximately 7,25,000 illegal immigrants from India live in the US, making it the third-largest population of unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador, according to data from the Pew Research Centre.

Many people from Punjab, who are now facing deportation, had entered the US through the “donkey route” or other illegal means by spending lakhs of rupees. The US administration has launched a crackdown against illegal immigrants after Trump became the President.

Bengaluru, Feb 5: Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara stated on Wednesday that the government will hold a meeting to decide whether to allow Class 10 students in the state to wear the hijab while attending exams and will convey its stance to the Supreme Court.

When asked whether any discussion had taken place regarding allowing female students wearing hijabs to appear for exams, HM Parameshwara said, “A meeting on this matter has not been held yet, but we will conduct one.”

When asked whether the government could make a decision while the hijab issue is still before the Supreme Court, he responded, “It is not about making a decision despite the case being in the Supreme Court. We need to make our own decisions and also communicate our stance to the court. We must present our opinion based on the current situation, and we will do so.”

The government in Karnataka is treading cautiously in connection with the matter of allowing students to write exams wearing the hijab.

During the tenure of the previous BJP government, the hijab crisis made international news and created a furore in the state.

While answering a question on whether the government will allow female students wearing the hijab to attend exams, Home Minister G. Parameshwara said on Tuesday, “We need to discuss the matter in detail and after discussions we will take a decision in this regard.”

When reminded that there was only one month left for exams, HM Parameshwara stated, “One month is sufficient period to discuss the matter.”

The previous BJP government imposed a ban on the wearing of the hijab along with school and pre-university (class 11 and 12) college female students.

The move was questioned by the students in the High Court and the court had upheld the decision of the government. The matter is presently with the Supreme Court.

The issue had also divided society, especially students, on communal lines across Karnataka.

A two-judge panel in the Supreme Court returned a split decision in October: One judge Hemant Gupta upheld the Karnataka High Court ruling, while the other, Sudhanshu Dhulia found it had ruled in error.

The judges requested the Chief Justice to refer the matter to a larger Bench.

The implementation of dress codes by educational institutes, banning the hijab, was criticised inside India and abroad by officials in countries including the United States and Pakistan.

The ban was defended by politicians such as Arif Mohammad Khan, Aaditya Thackeray and activist Taslima Nasreen.