Ranchi. Voting for 43 seats in the first phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections was completed on Wednesday. According to the data released by the Election Commission, a total of 64.86 percent voters exercised their franchise. This is the preliminary figure till 5 pm. The final figure may increase by a few percent. The special thing was that there was bumper voting in the areas which were affected by Naxalites for decades. Tremendous enthusiasm was seen among women and young voters in almost all areas. According to preliminary data, the highest turnout of 72.19 percent has been recorded on the seats of Seraikela-Kharsawan district, while the lowest turnout of 59.13 percent has been recorded on the seats of Hazaribagh district.
If we look at the assembly wise voting percentage, Kharsawan seat of Kolhan division has the highest number of 77.32 percent votes. In Ranchi Urban Assembly constituency, only 51.50 voters have exercised their franchise. Among the other seats where more than 70 percent voting took place, 76.15 percent voting was recorded in Baharagora, 73.21 in Lohardaga, 72.13 in Mandar, 72.29 in Potka, 71.54 in Seraikela, 71.21 in Sisai and 70.06 percent in Bishnupur. In this phase, 20 seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 6 seats for Scheduled Castes, while 17 seats are general. With the completion of voting, the fate of a total of 683 candidates has been sealed in EVMs.
Prominent candidates in this phase include former CM Champai Soren, his son Babulal Soren, six Jharkhand government ministers Dr. Rameshwar Oraon, Mithilesh Thakur, Banna Gupta, Deepak Birua, Baidyanath Ram and Ramdas Soren, former CM Arjun Munda’s wife Meera Munda, Purnima Das Sahu, daughter-in-law of Odisha Governor Raghuvar Das, former Assembly Speaker CP Singh, former minister Saryu Rai, former IPS Dr. Ajay Kumar, former national spokesperson of Congress, Rajya Sabha MP Dr. Mahua Maji, Geeta Koda, wife of former CM Madhu Koda. , former minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi, Dr. Neera Yadav etc. 15,344 polling stations were set up for voting in this phase, where voting started at 7 am. There were 950 polling stations in the state where voting was conducted till 4 pm. The Election Commission had taken this decision from the point of view of security in highly sensitive areas.