Battle for Jharkhand: 16 seats of Santhal Pargana geared up for vote in last phase of elections in Jharkhand

Ranchi: Voting for the fifth and penultimate phase of the elections on 16 seats of the Santhal Pargana division including the prestigious seat of Dumka will be held on Friday whereas estimated 40.05 lakh voters will decide the political future of a total of 236 candidates including 29 women.

The seats were polling will be held in the fifth phase included Rajmahal, Borio (ST), Barhet (ST), Littipada (ST), Pakur, Mahespur (ST), Shikaripada (ST), Nala, Jamtara, Dumka (ST), Jama (ST), Jarmundi, Sarath, Poriyahaat, Godda and Mahgama.

Among the 16 seats, 7 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes including Borio, Barhet, Littipada, Mahespur, Shikaripada, Dumka and Jama while others including Rajmahal, Pakur, Nala, Jamtara, Jarmundi, Mahgama, Poriyahaat, Sarath and Godda are in general category. Among the seats, a maximum of 26 candidates were in the Jarmundi seat while a minimum of 7 candidates are in the race on Poriyahaat seat.

A total of 40,03,183 voters are eligible to vote in this phase which included 20,49,140 male, 19,54,013 female and 30 third gender voters. The number of new-age voters was 67,045.

Addressing a press conference here state’s Chief Electoral Officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said that these 16 seats are spread across Sahebganj, Pakur, Dumka, Jamtara, Deoghar and Godda district. Among these seats, voting will be held on five seats namely Borio, Barhet, Littipada, Mahespur and Shikaripada from 0700hrs to 1500hrs while in the remaining 11 seats voters will be able to vote between 0700hrs to 1500hrs.

He said that eligible voters will be able to cast their votes on 5389 polling booths out of which 269 are located in urban areas while 5120 were in the rural areas. He said that the election commission in the fifth phase has provided a webcasting facility on 1347 booths while the number of ‘Sakhi Booths’ was 133 and model polling booths were 249. Adding further Mr Choubey said that only 8 booths have been relocated in this phase which included 5 in Shikaripada, 2 in Littipada and 1 in Jama.

The CEO said that the commission has this time divided the polling booths in naxal and non-naxal areas on the basis of which 369 polling booths were hypersensitive and another 208 were sensitive in naxal areas while in the non-naxal area 1321 booths have been declared hypersensitive and another 1765 booths have been declared sensitive.The number of normal booths in this phase was 5389.

Without divulging into the number of security personnel being deployed in the phase he said that keeping in mind the number of highly sensitive and sensitive booths an adequate number of Central Para Military Forces and jawans of the state armed police have been deployed in each and every booth.

He said that in this phase to conduct the polls 8987 ballot units, 6738 control units and 7006 VVPATs are being used. Mr Choubey said that among the constituencies in Rajmahal, Jarmundi, Sarath and Mahgama two EVMs will be used as the number of candidates was more than 16. He said that in this phase helicopters were used for heli dropping by means of which polling party members of 28 booths have been airdropped. Overall in this phase 96.26 percent photo equipped voter slips have been distributed.

Prominent candidates who are in the race on these seats included former Chief Minister and JMM’s acting president Hemant Soren who is contesting from two seats of Dumka and Barhet, Welfare Minister Louis Marandi from Dumka, Agriculture Minister Randhir Singh from Sarath, Irfan Ansari from Jamtara and Pradeep Yadav from Poriyahaat.