The aggregate turnout stood at 62.37 per cent at 9pm on Friday in the largely peaceful first phase of Lok Sabha polls in which 102 seats in 21 states and Union Territories voted.

The figure is expected to rise marginally owing to delays in reporting last-hour polling. The turnout for the seats was around 8 per cent higher in 2019.

Tripura witnessed the highest polling at 80.17 per cent. Bengal — where three seats went to polls — saw a 77.57 per cent turnout. In Uttarakhand, the turnout was the lowest at 54.06 per cent.

Nagaland witnessed a major drop in turnout because of a complete poll boycott in six eastern districts over the demand for a separate administration. On Friday, 56.91 per cent of voters exercised their franchise against 83 per cent in 2019. Twenty of 60 Assembly segments reported zero per cent polling or did not report any figure at all on the Election Commission’s voter turnout app.

In Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, a CRPF assistant commandant was injured by a pressure-triggered improvised explosive device near the Chihka polling booth during an area domination operation. A CRPF jawan on poll duty was killed in the same district when a shell of an under-barrel grenade launcher accidentally exploded.

The turnout in insurgency-hit Bastar constituency of Chhattisgarh — the only one in the state to vote in this phase — was 63.78 per cent. In 2019, the seat had witnessed 66.26 per cent turnout.

The Bastar division has seen a spike in confrontation between security forces and Maoists after the BJP came to power in the state in December. More than 100 people have died in the conflict this year alone. Voter turnout was lowest in the worst-hit Assembly segment of Bijapur where 41.62 per cent cast their vote.

In Tamil Nadu, the biggest state to go to polls in this phase, several voters complained that their names were missing from the rolls. A senior citizen in Madurai was allowed to vote after he emailed the chief election commissioner earlier this month that his name was missing from the rolls. Turnout in the state stood at 65.19 per cent compared with 72.44 per cent in 2019.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands saw a voting percentage of 56.87 per cent. For the first time in the Union Territory, seven members of the Shompen tribe, a particularly vulnerable tribal group of the Great Nicobar Islands, voted for the lone Lok Sabha seat.

In a departure from tradition, the EC did not disclose EVM failure rates in its statement on polling on Friday.