64.86% voting in 43 seats of first phase in Jharkhand, capital Ranchi lags behind

Ranchi. Voting for 43 seats was completed on Wednesday under the first phase of Jharkhand assembly elections. 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 bumper voting took place in the areas which were Naxal-affected for decades. Tremendous enthusiasm was seen among women and young voters in almost all the areas.
According to the preliminary data, the highest voting of 72.19 percent was recorded in the seats of Saraikela-Kharsawan district, while the lowest voting of 59.13 percent was recorded in the seats of Hazaribagh district.
If we look at the voting percentage assembly wise, the highest 77.32 percent votes were cast in Kharsawan seat of Kolhan division. The lowest number of voters, 51.50, exercised their franchise in Ranchi urban assembly constituency. Other seats where more than 70 percent voting took place include Baharagora (76.15 percent), Lohardaga (73.21 percent), Mandar (72.13 percent), Potka (72.29 percent), Saraikela (71.54 percent), Sisai (71.21 percent and Bishunpur (70.06 percent).
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 is sealed in the EVMs.
The major candidates of this phase include former CM Champai Soren, his son Babulal Soren, six ministers of Jharkhand government Dr. Rameshwar Oraon, Mithilesh Thakur, Banna Gupta, Deepak Birua, Baidyanath Ram and Ramdas Soren, former CM Arjun Munda's wife Meera Munda, Odisha Governor Raghuvar Das's daughter-in-law Purnima Das Sahu, former Assembly Speaker CP Singh, former minister Saryu Rai, former IPS Dr. Ajay Kumar, who was the national spokesperson of Congress, Rajya Sabha MP Dr. Mahua Maji, former CM Madhu Koda's wife Geeta Koda, former minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi, Dr. Neera Yadav etc.
In this phase, 15,344 polling stations were set up for voting, where voting started at seven in the morning. There were 950 polling stations in the state, where voting was conducted till four in the evening. The Election Commission had taken this decision from the point of view of security in highly sensitive areas.