new delhi the best citizens were clearly the elderly and of course the ones whose fates hang in balance in the four states where elections were held on monday what began as a trickle became a respectable 55 per cent voter turnout in the end but the disinterest of the young was marked much of delhi seemed to treat election day as a holiday happily extending the weekend by noon on monday polling booths in most parts of the city reported only a trickle of voters most of these were the elderly of the area conscientiously walking up to cast their vote it could be the chilly december morning it could be the fact that many voters just did not think it worth their while to exercise their franchise enthusiasm was low at most places including star constituencies like gole market and moti nagar one of which will give the capital its next chief minister the voter turnout was better in some booths in outer delhi and the old delhivoters started to come in only later to register a good turnout by the end of the day of course the apathy of the voter was made up for by the energy of the lumpen element out for the day an agitated shiela dikshit alleged the azads mp kirti and his wife poonam who is contesting against the chief minister had roughed up congress workers even kirti azad slapped a worker she alleged the congress has already filed a complaint against poonam azad azad made similar noisesin moti nagar where dikshits pet hate madan lal khurana hopes to win too there were scuffles as allegations flew there were reports from damoh in madhya pradesh too about bjp and congress workers clashing a woman was killed caught in crossfire between two groups in madhya pradesh and naxalites snatched electronic voting machines in chhattisgarh and the histrionics alka lamba a congress unknown contesting against khurana sought her giant adversarys blessings by touching his feet going by lambas grumbles khurana was not much inclined to vip voters began early though the nationss first citizen president a p j abdul kalam who was away rushed back to the city to vote at 430 pm congress president sonia gandhi cast her vote at the nirman bhavan polling booth and declared we will have to wait till december 4 but we will do well she was accompanied by a nervous dikshit who herself voted only after her leader had daughter priyanka vadra voted in lodi colony and talked politics khurana had voted by noon so had the bjp royal vasundhara raje in jhalawar rajasthan and madhya pradesh uma bharati and chief minister digvijay singh in his bastion raghogarh a twinkle in the eye if this chief minister was nervous he was not showing it as he quoted from the gita and insisted he would be third time lucky