Ranchi. Campaigning on 38 seats in the second and last phase of Jharkhand Assembly Elections came to an end on Monday evening. Voting on these seats will be held on November 20. These include 18 seats each in Santhal Pargana division and North Chotanagpur division and two seats in South Chotanagpur division. In this phase, eight seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and three for Scheduled Castes, while the number of general seats is 27.
Prominent candidates of this phase include CM Hemant Soren as JMM candidate from Barhet seat, BJP state president and first CM of the state Babulal Marandi from Rajdhanwar seat, JMM’s star campaigner Kalpana Soren from Gandey seat, Nala seat. Assembly Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahato as JMM candidate, Assembly Leader of Opposition Amar Bauri on Chandankiyari seat, Congress on Mahagama seat. BJP candidate Deepika Pandey Singh, Congress quota minister Irfan Ansari in Jamtara, JMM quota minister Hafeezul Hasan in Madhupur, Minister Baby Devi as JMM candidate on Dumri seat, AJSU party chief Sudesh Mahato on Silli seat and Dumka seat. CM Hemant Soren’s brother Basant Soren is included.
In the elections held on these seats in 2019, JMM had won maximum 13 seats, while 12 seats went to BJP’s account. Congress had won 8 seats, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha and AJSU Party had won 2 seats each and CPIML had won 1 seat. In this phase, a total of 528 candidates are in the fray, whose fate will be decided by a total of 1 crore 23 lakh 58 thousand 195 voters. A total of 14,218 polling stations have been set up in all these seats, where polling parties will reach by the evening of 19 November. There are 31 highly sensitive polling stations where voting will take place only from 7 in the morning to 4 in the evening.
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Except these, votes can be cast at all other centers till 5 pm. On the last day of campaigning, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, LJP (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi from the India Bloc side were present on behalf of BJP-NDA. Leaders like Gandhi, CM Hemant Soren, JMM’s star campaigner Kalpana Soren held more than 20 public meetings. State Chief Electoral Officer K. Ravi Kumar said that 48 booths have been developed as unique booths.
There are 239 booths which will be completely operated by women personnel. The arrangements of 22 polling stations will be handled by disabled workers, while the arrangements of 26 polling stations have been handed over to the youth. Chief Electoral Officer K. Ravi Kumar has said that as soon as the election campaign is over, all the political people who had gone there for election work, who are not voters of that area, will have to leave. If such people are caught after the campaign period is over, action will be taken against them as per rules.