First phase of Bihar elections ends with 57 per cent voter turnout

Obviously, in an Assembly election, it’s the state government that seeks the mandate on the basis of its performance and clearly Nitish Kumar has to answer on this count. The relatively better turnout in most of 13 Maoist-infested seats and 6 reserved category constituencies is significant for the Grand Alliance comprising the JD(U), the RJD and the Congress and the NDA’s BJP, LJP, RLSP and HAM. Though a few complaints were received, including an attack on LJP candidate Vijay Singh in Jamui, prima facie the complaints were found to be false, Nayak said. “It is the only agenda that has attracted me”, said Suman Kumar, a voter in Bhagalpur district.

Women outnumbered male voters at the majority of booths in the first phase of the all-important Assembly elections in Bihar on Monday.

The youth everywhere said, “We have voted for change and development”. Sangeeta Sinha, a voter in Bhagalpur, said she could realize that she had voted for the right candidate when she got a receipt from Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine.

Giridhari Yadav in Khagaria said he would vote for Nitish Kumar.

Twitterati are praising Nitish Kumar using the hashtag ‘#JeetegaNitishJhumegaDesh’.

However, points corresponding to improvement, unemployment, industrial backwardness, corruption, rising crime graph, consuming water drawback, poor roads and erratic electrical energy provide, poor instructional infrastructure, migration of college students for greater schooling, neglect of rural areas, and so on, are main ballot planks utilized by numerous events to garner voters’ help.

Women voters too were seen in long queues, especially in Bhagalpur, Banka, Munger and Samastipur districts. The Bihar battle, which ends on November 5 and whose outcome will be known on November 8, is the biggest popularity test in the country after the Delhi election in February in which the AAP routed the BJP.

Giving out district-wide detail of poll percentage, Sinha said Samastipur recorded 60 per cent turnout which was 54.2 per cent in the last assembly elections.

However, there were reports of poll boycott at nine booths.

Drones will be used for the first time for surveillance and about 1.20 lakh security officials, including 87,600 central paramilitary personnel, would be deployed at 13,212 polling booths, officials said.

The Election Commission is also webcasting polling from 561 booths. It ended at 3 PM in nine Assembly seats and at 4 other constituencies at 4 PM in accordance with the decision of the Election Commission taken in consideration of the areas’ sensitivity to Naxalites.