NEW DELHI: Indian elections recorded a high voter turnout in the 64 seats that went to polls on Wednesday, amid growing indications of a hung parliament.

One person was killed when police fired on a violent crowd in Bihar. In West Bengal, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has monopolised Muslim support, the highest percentage of voting was recorded at 81.28 per cent.

In a campaign shorn of any dignity, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress are trying to outdo each other with barbs and invectives. There are plans for Congress icon Rahul Gandhi to campaign in Varanasi on Saturday against BJP’s Narendra Modi. The move could, however, split the anti-Modi votes, which are believed to favour the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal.

Polling was held in Amethi on Wednesday where Gandhi is locked in a triangular contest with BJP’s television-star-turned politician Smriti Irani and Aam Aadmi Party’s Kumar Vishwas.

Modi’s rally in Amethi also came on the last day of campaigning for the eighth phase of polling and was an attempt to give a push to the BJP candidate’s poll prospects in the pocket borough of Gandhi family at a time when Congress is facing difficult election nationwide, particularly in central and eastern UP.

Gandhi’s roadshow in Varanasi is being seen as a way of getting back at Modi who had broken the unwritten code that no top political leader campaigns in the political backyard of a top rival.

Reports said Gandhi was heckled and questioned by voters as he went from booth to booth in his family pocket borough of Amethi on Wednesday. Both party workers and residents said this was the first time that Gandhi was visiting the booths on polling day.

According to the Indian Express, at Chilauli Singhpur booth, Ambika Saran Singh, 63, told him: “Chalo dus saal baad dekhne ko to mila (we got to see you after 10 years).”

When Gandhi said, “Main yahan aya to hun (I have come here),” Mr Singh replied: “Aaj to aap yahan apne swarth ke liye aye hain (you have come here today for your own benefit).”

After Gandhi left, Singh said, “I am a farmer and have been a Congress workers for the last 30 years… but the Congress is good at ignoring its old workers.”

High drama was reported from Amethi as BJP candidate Smriti Irani engaged in a public spat with Priyanka Gandhi’s aide Preeti Sahay, objecting to her presence at a booth in Thori village in Jagdishpur area on Wednesday.

Ms Sahay was later asked to leave Amethi after the BJP filed a complaint with the Election Commission alleging that she was trying to influence voters.

Prominent among those who faced the vote on Wednesday, was former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, former Dalit minister and BJP ally Ram Vilas Paswan and Gandhi cousin Varun Gandhi.

One person was killed when police opened fire outside a polling booth in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district in an alleged bid to prevent its capture.

The highest turnout in the eighth phase was 81.28 per cent in the six seats in West Bengal, which Trinamool Congress is trying to wrest from Left Front, followed by 76 per cent in Seemandhra, which broke away from Andhra Pradesh recently, where voters chose 25 representatives to Lok Sabha and 175 members of the proposed assembly simultaneously.

Two key battleground states, Bihar, where seven constituencies went to polls, and Uttar Pradesh, where 15 seats were up for grabs, recorded impressive voter turnout of 58 per cent and 55.52 per cent.

Congress hopes to retain as much ground as possible in the phase covering central UP in the face of a strong surge by BJP, playing the caste and religion cards, and a desperate BSP and SP seeking to hold on to their Muslim-OBC-Dalit vote base.

After the latest phase, voting has been completed in 502 of the total of 543 constituencies and the remaining 41 seats will go to polls in the last round on May 12.

Two seats in Jammu and Kashmir registered a turnout of close to 50 per cent. Baramulla Lok Sabha seat, where several incidents of militant violence have been reported and separatists have given a poll boycott call, recorded a turnout of 39.6 per cent.