RANCHI: Despite Maoist threats, first phase of polls for 43 Assembly seats were completed peacefully with 64.86 per cent voting turnout till 5 pm in Jharkhand.
Notably, registering their presence after a long time, the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI) an offshoot of the CPI (Maoist) had put up posters near Ranchi and Khunti districts calling for a boycott of Assembly polls in Jharkhand.
“Voting which commenced at 7 AM today was held peacefully without any incidents of violence. As per updates till 5 PM, a voter turnout of 64.86 per cent was recorded at the polling stations in Jharkhand which has already surpassed 63.9 per cent voting in these 43 ACs in 2019 Assembly Elections,” stated an official communiqué from the Election Commission of India.
Highest voting percentage was recorded in Kharsawan with 77.32 per cent, followed by Bahragora at 76.15 per cent, Lohardaga at 73.21 per cent, Potka at 72.29 per cent, and Mandar with 72.13 per cent. The lowest voting percentage, however, was recorded in Ranchi with 51.5 per cent, followed by Jamshedpur West at 55.95 per cent, Jamshedpur East at 56.72 per cent, Hazaribagh at 57.65 per cent and Kanke at 57.89 per cent.
A total of 179 ballot units, 161 control units, and 420 VVPATs were replaced during the polls.
The official communiqué further added that, in the Manoharpur and Jaganathpur Assembly constituency of West Singhbhum district, voters chose to cast their vote despite the boycott posters and threat calls by extremists.
At the polling stations in Sonapi in Jaganathpur AC and Rabangada in Manoharpur AC, security forces thwarted attempts to prevent voters from voting through boycott posters and blockades on the way, it said.
“For the first time, voters of Lakhaidih village in Potka AC (East Singhbhum district) having 100% tribal population voted at a polling station set up in their own village,” stated the official release for ECI. Earlier, they had to travel to a nearby village to cast their vote which is nearly 25 km from the main road and 4 km away through dense forest and hilly route, it said.
Meanwhile, IG operations and Jharkhand Police Spokesperson AV Homkar informed that all the 15 districts in which the elections were held for 43 Assembly seats in Jharkhand on Wednesday, were Maoist-infested and it was a big challenge for the police to conduct peaceful polling.
“But, the elections were held peacefully without even a single Maoist incident in all 43 Assembly seats in Jharkhand. Out of the total 15, 334 polling booths during the first phase of polling, 2249 were identified as sensitive from the Naxal point of view for which huge deployment of forces was done to avoid any untoward situation,” said Homkar.
Moreover, Homkar said, there were 286 such booths in Jharkhand which were shadow areas having no mobile or internet connectivity for which special arrangements were made to establish communication with the polling personnel.
Looking at the security point of view, polling personnel was heli-dropped on 255 booths a day ahead of the polling on the most sensitive booths, he added.
Notably, the fate of 683 candidates in the electoral race will be decided by 13,710,717 voters, including 6,873,455 men, 6,836,959 women, and 303 third-gender voters. Of the 683 candidates, 609 are men, 73 are women, and one belongs to the third gender.