The Election Commission is up against the challenge to continue the good show in terms of voting percentage registered during the previous two phases in Jharkhand. The third phase on Tuesday has relatively more urban voters that have often been labeled more as ‘drawing room debaters’ rather than poll enthusiasts.
The third phase would see urbanised and mining centres of the State such as Ranchi, Hatia, Hazaribagh, Bermo, Ramgarh, Jhumri Tilaiya, Kanke going to vote. Out of a total of 5,865 polling stations, 409 are situated in urban areas with higher density of population.
This is also the phase in which as many as three constituencies, namely, Ranchi, Hatia and Kanke, would see the use of the VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail), meant at present for the urban voters. Voters in these three constituencies would also enjoy extended poll time of two hours. A total of 1,190 booths would see the use of VVPAT.
Chief Electoral Officer P K Jajoria accepts the scenario as a challenge. “We have seen great response from the voters during the first two phases but it is also a fact that voting percentage has been on its lower side in Ranchi on previous occasions. However, it has shown improvements in the lok Sabha polls. The ECI has done sufficiently to encourage voters to come and vote and we hope that this will work,” said Jajoria.
The EC has declared 1,477 booths as sensitive and 1,957 as hyper-sensitive. Micro observers and paramilitary forces would be deployed at critical booths where video recording would also take place. Arrangements to webcast polling process from 347 polling stations have also been made whereas 29,310 polling personnel have been deployed to conduct the democratic exercise. Also 17 general observers, seven expenditure observers, two police observers, two awareness observers and 807 micro observers have been appointed.