Ranchi: Voting for the first phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections began at 7 A.M. on 43 seats on Wednesday. Out of 15,344 polling stations in the first phase, voting will be held from 7 A.M. to 4 P.M. in 950 constituencies in the state. There are 11 Assembly constituencies where voting will be held till 5 P.M. in all polling stations. These constituencies include Koderma, Barkatha, Barhi, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur East, Jamshedpur West, Majhgaon, Ranchi, Hatia, Panki and Bhawanathpur.
Prominent leaders contesting this phase include former Chief Minister of Jharkhand Champai Soren, ex- Chief Minister Madhu Koda’s wife Geeta Koda and Rajya Sabha MP Mahua Maji. In the first phase of voting for 43 Assembly seats in Jharkhand there is a fierce contest between the NDA and INDIA Bloc.
In the 2019 elections, the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance secured 25 of these seats, while the BJP managed only 13. The remaining seats were split among Independents (2), NCP (1), and JVM (1). This time, the NDA is looking to improve its tally, while the INDIA Bloc aims to consolidate its previous gains and expand its footprint further.
Also, Voting is underway in the bye-elections for 31 Assembly seats across 10 states, as well as the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, from where Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Interestingly, though these bypolls will not have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana Assembly polls.
Along with Wayanad, seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, and Meghalaya will also witness the bypoll contest. Votes will be counted on November 23.