Tag: Election-Commission

Jharkhand polls: 28.24% polling recorded till 11 am.

Source – indiatoday.in

Around 28.24 per cent of over 40 lakh voters exercised their franchise till 11 am on Friday in the fifth and final phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections, Election Commission (EC) officials said.

Long queues were seen before polling stations in the 16 constituencies with voters braving minimum temperatures hovering between 6.6 degrees Celsius and 10 degrees Celsius.

Voting will end at 3 pm in five constituencies while it will conclude at 5 pm in the remaining seats, they said.

The seats where polling is underway are Borio (ST), Barhait (ST), Litipara (ST), Maheshpur (ST), Sikaripara (ST), Rajmahal, Pakur, Nalla, Jamtara, Dumka (ST), Jama (ST), Jarmundi, Sarath, Poreyahat, Godda and Mahagama.

Altogether 40,05,287 electorate, including 19,55,336 women and 30 third gender voters, are eligible to cast their vote, Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said.

Adequate security forces have been deployed, he said.

Of 5,389 polling stations, 396 in Naxal-affected areas have been marked as “critical” while 208 have been declared “sensitive”.

In all, 1,321 polling stations in non-left wing extremism affected areas have been marked as “critical” while 1,765 declared “sensitive”.

The Election Commission has set up 8,987 ballot units, 6,738 control units and 7,006 VVPAT machines.

Altogether, 249 polling stations have been marked as model booths.

As many as 133 polling stations have women staff while 1,347 have webcasting facilities, Choubey said.

BJP candidate and Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Randhir Singh is seeking re-election from Sarath.

State Women and Child Development Minister Louis Marandi is contesting against JMM’s working president and former chief minister Hemant Soren from Dumka.

Louis Marandi had defeated Soren in the 2014 assembly elections.

Like the previous Assembly polls when he contested from two seats, Soren is in the fray from Barhait as well.

Soren’s sister-in-law Sita Soren is seeking re-election from Jama.

The BJP, which is contesting on all 16 seats in this final phase, has fielded sitting MLAs Ashok Kumar Bhagat, Anant Ojha and Amit Mandal from Mahagama, Rajmahal and Godda assembly constituencies, respectively.

Former deputy chief minister and sitting JMM MLA Stephen Marandi is seeking re-election from Maheshpur.

The state president of the Janata Dal (United) and former MP, Salkhan Murmu, is contesting from Sikaripara.

The JMM-Congress-RJD alliance has fielded candidates from all 16 constituencies.

While the JMM has fielded nominees in 11 seats, the Congress and the RJD are contesting from four and one segments, respectively.

The Babulal Marandi-headed Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) has also fielded candidates in this round.

Candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Lok Jan Shakti Party, AJSU Party and the Left are also in the fray.

Of the 81 assembly seats, elections had concluded in 65 constituencies in the previous four phases between November 30 and December 16.

Votes will be counted on December 23.

Maoist-hit areas vote today in round three of Jharkhand polls.

Source – hindustantimes.com

Voting is underway to pick legislators from 17 seats of the 81 assembly constituencies of Jharkhand on Thursday in the third round of the five-phase election, amid heavy security.

The Election Commission has made heavy deployment of security forces, as 12 constituencies out of total 17 are stated to be under the influence of left-wing extremism (LWE).

Chief electoral officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said, “Like previous phases, there are some LWE-affected pockets in the third phase as well. In view of this, we have heli dropped polling personnel in 96 polling stations. Besides, 10 polling booths have been relocated due to security reasons.”

A total of three helicopters have been deployed to ferry the polling officials in sensitive areas, he added.

Out of 7,016 polling stations across 17 constituencies in eight districts, a total of 1,008 booths have been declared hyper-LWE sensitive, while 543 polling stations are LWE sensitive. Altogether 1,119 booths have been declared non-LWE hyper sensitive, while 2,672 are non-LWE sensitive booths, election officials said.

A crucial phase for the ruling BJP and the Opposition alliance, a group of three parties comprising Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), it will also decide the fate of two Cabinet ministers (CP Singh and Neera Yadav), former minister Rajendra Singh, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) chief Babulal Marandi and All Jharkhand Students Union or AJSU Party supremo Sudesh Mahto.

A total of 309 candidates, including 32 women, are contesting from 17 assembly seats. Besides, two Cabinet ministers, seven other sitting legislators — JP Yadav, Manish Jaiswal, Rajkumar Yadav, Yogeshwar Mahto, Sadhucharan Mahto, Ramkumar Pahan and Naveen Jaiswal — are also fighting to retain their seats.

Riding on the magic of prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP, which contesting from 16 seats, is confident of bagging the maximum number of seats in this phase. BJP had grabbed nine seats in the 2014 assembly elections. The alliance, which has fielded candidates in all 17 seats, is also hoping big gains from the phase.

In past assembly elections, Congress and JMM won two seats each, while Babulal Marandi led JVM-P bagged two seats. AJSU Party and CPI-M shared one seat each.

According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR), which has analysed the affidavits of all 309 candidates in the fray, a total of 91 candidates with criminal charges are contesting the polls in the third phase and 62 of them have serious criminal cases against them.

ASJU Party has fielded the maximum number of candidates with criminal charges (10), while BJP has put up eight and the alliance six. JVM-P’s eight candidates out of the total 17 in the fray for the third phase have declared criminal cases against them.

Buoyed by the encouraging voters turnout in the first phase (64.22%) and second phase (65.15%), the poll panel expects the turnout to be higher in the third phase. To attract the maximum number of voters, the Election Commission has declared 329 polling stations as model booths, of which 44 would be operated by women.