Fourth phase of voting on Sunday ended peacefully in some of the worst Maoist affected constituencies. Though the polling could not show its bearing on voters turnout mainly due to poor voting in urban constituencies including Dhanbad and Bokaro. Electorates of the 15 Assembly segments underwent poll barely maintained the average turnouts Jharkhand has been recording thus far with just over 61.8 per cent polling.
The real dampener came once again from industrial and mining townships where Bokaro and Dhanbad scored a dismal low with below 55 percentage points. Another coal mining center Jharia could take the voting percentage up to 52 per cent only.
At the same time Jamua and Baghmara with 58 per cent polling further helped in pulling the overall figure down. Poll percentage had touched 64 per cent mark during the 3rd phase of elections with Ichagarh scoring as high as 79 per cent. However, the score was nearly eight per cent more in comparison with 2009 (52.91 pc).
Chief Electoral Officer PK Jajoria also expressed his disappointment over the lower than expected poll percentage. “The voting could not go up than what we had got in the lok Sabha polls. The reasons behind the lower percentage are to be looked into, especially in the urban centers. It would be wrong to blame experiments like VVPAT for this. As far as good turnout in rural areas is concerned it has always been the case,” he said after polling ended.
The figures could not better itself in comparison of previous occasion despite good showing by rural constituencies such as Chandankyari (71. 28 %), Madhupur (70 %), Bagodar (66 %), Dumri (65 %), Nirsa (63 %) and Tundi (62 %).
Out of 15 Assembly constituencies, two—Boakro and Dhanbad—had facilities of VVPAT with extended polling hours till 5 pm. Bokaro could score just 51 per cent while the latter barely managed to reach 55. Fate of leaders such as Mannan Mallick, Suresh Paswan, Babulal Marandi, Samresh Singh and Hazi Hussain Ansari are to be decided.
Nevertheless, the poll machinery deserves kudos for conducting incident-free poll despite some of the constituencies such as Giridih, Dumari, Gandey, Jamua Bagodar etc falling into the Red zones. It was like the victory of the ballot over bullets when electors chose to defy the Maoist diktat of poll boycott and lined up at booths to exercise their franchise.
Barring a few incidents of skirmishes, polling in Giridih, Dumari, Gandey, Jamua and Bagodar passed off peacefully. More than dozen trouble makers were rounded up for creating disturbances at polling centers in the town as well as rural areas.
At the mica town Giridih, polling centers witnessed brisk voting as the day started and by 9 in the morning the polling percentage reached up to 25 per cent. It picked up as the day progress. long queues of women voters were seen at all the booths.
Voting picked up slowly in Nawadih areas, considered as hotbed of Maoists, under the Nawadih police station in Dumri constituency. But voters thronged the polling stations in afternoon giving a thumb down to Maoists’ boycott call. As per information provided by the police, the Maoists had put up posters on several places asking people to boycott poll.
Candidates of the constituencies like Jamua, Dumari and Bagodar were also facing threats and security has been beefed up for them. “We have intensified patrolling and combing operation in the area to foil any possible Maoists violence and ensure free and fair polls,” SP Giridih G Kranti Kumar said. A cane bomb had been seized near Palamu-Sarubera forest area under Nawadih block of Bermo on Friday during search operation.