Haryana’s trend of decreasing voter turnouts is likely to continue with only 61.19 per cent of its voters turning up at the polling stations by 7pm on Saturday.

In 2019, the Assembly poll turnout was 67.92 per cent, not including postal votes. Polling stations close at 6pm and only those in queue at the time are allowed to vote.

Turnouts in Haryana, both for the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, have fallen steadily since 2014.

In Saturday’s polling, Mewat district, which has three seats and had witnessed communal violence last year, recorded the highest turnout at 68.28 per cent.

The four seats in Gurugram, adjoining Delhi, had the lowest turnout at a combined 49.97 per cent.

Scuffles took place between Congress and Independent candidates and their supporters in Nuh’s Punhana constituency and Rohtak’s Meham constituency.

In Hisar’s Narnaund seat, BJP and Congress workers came to blows outside a polling booth.

The Congress, led by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, is trying to end the 10-year rule of the BJP, which had switched chief ministers in the middle of its second term, replacing Manohar Lal with Nayab Singh to try and beat anti-incumbency.

The Congress, after a 10-0 drubbing at the hands of the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls from Haryana in 2019, regained ground in this year’s general election, evening the score at 5-5.

A video emerged on polling day of a purported molestation attempt on a woman Congress leader on a campaign stage where Hooda was present, prompting the BJP to attack the principal rival.

Congress MP Kumari Selja, considered Hooda’s rival, confirmed the incident to reporters saying: “I spoke to her; she told me that some people were touching her and trying to remove her from the stage. We saw the same in the video as well and when I confirmed this with her, she told me that someone misbehaved with her.”

She added: “If something like this happens to a woman today, it is highly condemnable. Action should be taken on this.”

Chief minister Nayab Singh said action would be taken if a complaint was received.

The Dainik Bhaskar, People’s Pulse, and Republic Bharat Matrize polls gave the Congress 44-64 seats, and the BJP 15-32 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.

The same exit polls in Jammu and Kashmir have predicted either a win for the INDIA bloc, or the formation coming up as the single largest alliance with 35-50 seats in the new 90-member Assembly, created after the bifurcation of the erstwhile state.