Fifteen constituencies spread across four districts — mostly Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected — in Jharkhand will go to polls in the fourth and penultimate phase of elections here on Sunday. Out of the 6,101 polling stations in the phase, 1,133 have been marked as hypersensitive and 3,070 sensitive, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Vinay Kumar Choubey said on Sunday.
“At least 587 of the 1,133 hypersensitive booths and 405 of 3,070 sensitive booths fall in LWE-affected areas,” said Choubey, adding that the remaining sensitive and hypersensitive booths are in areas where LWE groups are not active.
Nearly 48 lakh voters will decide the fate of 221 candidates in the 15 constituencies spread across Deoghar, Giridih, Bokaro and Dhanbad districts on Sunday. The polling process will begin at 7am in all the 15 constituencies and conclude at 3pm in constituencies that fall in LWE-affected areas. The polling will continue till 5pm in the constituencies that do not fall in LWE affected areas, said Choubey.
Sufficient security forces have been deployed in the constituencies to ensure peaceful polling on Sunday. Jawans of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), State police and Railway Protection Force (RPF) have been deployed in the constituencies to thwart any attempts by the LWE outfits to sabotage elections, officials said on Saturday. Besides, polling personnel and security forces were airdropped in highly sensitive zones on Saturday. “Foolproof security arrangements have been made to conduct peaceful polls on Sunday. A total of 7,628 control units have been set up in the 15 constituencies for the polls,” Choubey said.
The five-phase election in Jharkhand began on November 30 and will conclude on December 20. The first two phases of polls — on November 30 and December 7 — witnessed a fair share of LWE menace. CPI (Maoist) rebels blew up a culvert in Gumla on November 30, while rebels attacked a polling party in Khunti and torched a bus in Chaibasa on December 7. However, no casualties have been reported in LWE incidents on any of the polling dates here so far during this election. No LWE incidents were reported in the third phase of polls on December 12.
At least 4296 polling booths in the fourth phase fall in rural areas while the remaining 1805 booths come in areas under urban civic bodies. All the polling booths in Jharia fall in urban areas, whereas all polling stations in Chandankiyari, Dumri, Gandey, Bagodar and Jamua fall in rural areas. Madhupur, Deoghar, Giridih, Bokaro, Sindri, Nirsa, Dhanbad, Tundi and Baghmara constituencies have polling stations in urban as well as rural areas. As many as 1367 differently-abled and voters above the age of 80 years cast their votes through postal ballot in the fourth phase of elections in Jharkhand.
Elections for the 81 Assembly seats in Jharkhand began on November 30 and will conclude on December 20. The votes will be counted on December 23. Some parts of the State witnessed a sudden rise in minor LWE incidents soon after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced elections in Jharkhand on November 1.