High voltage campaigning for the third phase of State Assembly elections ended on Tuesday with bigwigs, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, trying to woo voters in Jharkhand. State administration has made elaborate security arrangements and taken several steps for voters’ convenience ahead of the polls.
The third phase is very important for all political parties as several urban areas including the State Capital will go to poll on Thursday. Five out of 17 constituencies, going to polls on Thursday will have polling from 7 am to 5 pm, while rest 12 constituencies will have polling between 7 am and 3 pm. According to ECI, Ranchi, Hatia, Kanke, Ramgarh and Barkattha seats will have polling from 7 am to 5 pm, while other 12 seats will have normal polling schedule.
Chief Electoral Officer, Jharkhand, Vinay Kumar Choubey, said that polling personnel and polling agents are to be present at the polling station one and a half hours before the start of polling. After this, action of Mock Poll will be done. The voting process will begin after Mock Poll. In the Assembly seats for which the voting time is 3 pm and 5 pm, all the voters present till that time will be able to vote.
Under this, the Presiding Officers will give a slip with their signature to such voters and they will be allowed to vote, he said.
According to ECI 56,18,267 voters will exercise their franchise in the third phase of polls. As many as 1,16,938 voters have been added to the electoral roll after October 12, when electoral roll was published. The number of male voters for third phase is 29,37,976, female voters is 26,80,205 and third gender voters is 86.
The number of millennial voters in the third phase is 1,44,153, out of which 65,656 are males and 65,545 are females. The third gender millennial voters are 12 in the third phase.
Meanwhile, CEO Vinay Kumar Chaubey said that dry day has been effected in districts where third phase of polling will take place on December 12 from 3 PM on Tuesday for 48 hours. The districts include Koderma, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Ramgarh, Giridih, Bokaro, Ranchi and Seraikela-Kharsanwa . Dry Day has also become effective from 3 pm on December 10in the border districts, including the above mentioned districts, for voting. He said that to ensure compliance of the dry day and necessary action, the necessary directions have been given to the District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Officers of the respective districts.
Elaborate security arrangements have been made across the 17 constituencies where voting will take place. Several companies of Central Para Military Forces, Jharkhand Police, STF (Jharkhand Jaguar) and SAP along with other forces have been stationed in naxal infested areas, officials said.
