With voter turnout not even touching 50 per cent during the four phases of polling for the UP Assembly elections, the Election Commission today said nearly 85 lakh people across the state have been marked absentee voters.

Today’s turnout was 46 per cent. An on the defensive Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan said the “focus should not be on low polling but on the fact that it was fearless violence-free polling. That a large number of women and rural voters came out to vote”.

But while analysing the low voter turnout in all the four phases, he said that the Commission had taken additional measures to ensure that only “eligible voters” are allowed to vote.

Fending off criticism that excess security proved to be a deterrent, Balakrishnan said the low polling could also be due to the fact that a large number of registered voters from across the state stayed elsewhere to earn their livelihood.

Of the 1.55 crore voters in the fourth phase, “as many as 12 lakh voters were found to be “temporarily absent”. Balakrishnan claimed that the EC weeded out “stuffing of male voters” in place of women who were either not allowed to register or not allowed to vote.