Stage is set for the last phase of polls in Jharkhand covering entire Santhal Pargana region comprising 16 Assembly constituencies.
The Election Commission has made all arrangements on its part and polling parties have reached to their destinations for the Saturday polling. Total 4,448 polling stations, including 30 auxiliaries have been made for the polls for 36,88,503 electorates. The EC has declared 833 polling stations as hyper-sensitive and 1,496 are sensitive. Total 22,240 polling personnel, 16 general observers, ten expenditure observers, three police observers, one awareness observer and 1,050 micro observers have been deployed for conducting free and fair election. Notably only 149 polling centres fall in urban areas.
Number of women voters is 1,784,486 while 231,148 voters are in the age group of 18-19 years. Of the 16 seats, seven are reserved for tribal leaving nine for general candidates. Pakur has the largest number of 291,379 electorates whereas Barhait with 185,679 voters fairs as lowest. Politically, the 16 seats of Santhal Pargana region spread across six districts are considered to hold the key for the shape of the new Government in Jharkhand. Till date the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has been leading the battle in the tribal heartland which ensured its participation in some way or the other in almost all the governments formed in the State in last 14 years.
Coming to heavyweights into fray, Chief Minister Hemant Soren is certainly the tallest figure. Both his seats—Dumka and Barhait—would go for polls on Saturday. Besides Soren, his sister-in-law Sita Soren (Jama), Speaker Shashank Shekhar Bhokta (Sarath), Minister lobin Hembrom (Borio) and Nalin Soren (Shikaripara) are the JMM’s sepoys.
However, some of the party’s old guards have rebelled against and are in the arena challenging the party. Notable among them are Hemlal Murmu (Barhait) and Simon Marandi from littipara. Former minister during the Madhu Koda regime Hari Narayan Rai is JMM’s candidate from Jarmundi. While the JMM has fielded candidates on all 16 seats; the BJP has put up 15 candidates leaving one Shikaripara for ally lJP. Congress has given candidates on 11 seats, JVM on 15 and RJD on six. As many as 65 Independent candidates are also flexing their muscle. Nala has maximum 19 candidates, while littipara has eight contestants. Counting of votes would take up on December 23.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has also ensured sufficient security deployment for the polls on Saturday. “Greater security deployment than the other ones have been done for sensitive and hyper sensitive booths in order to ensure free and fair elections in the region,” said Chief Electoral Officer of Jharkhand PK Jajoria.