historic-polling-in-j-khand-without-maoist-violence

For the first time since the formation of Jharkhand, assembly elections were conducted without any incidents of Maoist violence, marking a significant milestone in the history of the State.

 

In all previous elections held in the years 2005, 2009, 2014 and 2019 Maoist related violence have occurred in the State deterring the voters to come out and exercise their voting rights.

 

In the 2019 elections the husband of a block head was killed in Palamu district and Maoists had blown up a bridge in Gumla district during the elections. An encounter between security forces and Maoists was also reported in the 2019 polls.

 

Just a month before elections in November 2019 Maoists had killed four security personnel in Latehar district.

 

Also, there will not be any re-polling in any polling booth this election, said Election Commission officials.

 

"Polling remained peaceful and no major Maoist incident was reported during the two phases of elections in Jharkhand. All polling parties have returned to strong rooms safely as we had closely monitored their movements," said Nodal Police Officer for Jharkhand Assembly election AV Homkar.

 

The second phase of polling for 38 assembly seats in Jharkhand concluded peacefully on Wednesday, recording a voter turnout of 67.59%.

 

In this phase, the BJP contested 32 seats and AJSU contested six from the NDA alliance, while the INDIA bloc saw JMM fielding candidates in 20 constituencies, Congress in 12, RJD in two, and CPI (ML) in four.

 

Meanwhile, the Election Commission ordered the filing of an FIR against presiding officer Ramanand Kumar Paswan from polling station 111 in the Madhupur assembly constituency.

 

He was accused of casting votes in favour of the JMM candidate, a claim substantiated through webcasting. Paswan was immediately taken into custody, and a replacement officer was assigned to the polling station.

 

A total of 528 candidates contested in this phase, including 472 men and 55 women. Voting was conducted across 14,219 polling stations, which were closely monitored through webcasting from the State Election Building and District Election Offices.