Ranchi, Apr 16 : Polling by and large concluded peacefully for the municipal bodies in the state with 65.15 per cent voters casting their votes during the polls.
For the first time the municipal polls were held on party lines for electing the mayor and deputy mayor of five municipal corporations, and president and vice president of 16 nagar parishads and 13 nagar panchayats.
A total of 22,12,137 voters were eligible to caste their votes across 2337 polling booths in these polls. Out of the 2337 booths, 1065 booths were declared very sensitive while another 981 were declared sensitive. Meanwhile, bypolls were also held at four local bodies – Jhumri Tilayya, Deoghar, Dhanbad and Bishrampur.
The state election commission had deployed an additional 12000 security personnel to ensure that the elections concluded peacefully in the state. To keep an eye on the voting control rooms were set up at the police headquarters and state election commission.
Official sources at the state election commission said that voting for the vice president of Kapali in Saraikela has been cancelled and voting would be held on a separate date which would be announced later by the commissions.
In the state capital Ranchi former Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s name was missing from the voter list therefore he had to face trouble to cast his vote however later he found his booth and exercised his franchisee alongwith his wife at booth number 10 of ward number 25. Urban Development Minister C P Singh cast his vote alongwith his family at booth number 19 of ward number 12.
In Chirkunda of Dhanbad Police took four people into custody who were trying to distribute money among the people for votes. Apart from that across few polling booths of Ranchi, Palamu, Chatra, Koderma there were reports of EVMs not functioning properly which was rectified by the engineers and voting commenced.
A total of 4559 candidates are in fray in these polls which included 278 candidates for mayor/president, deputy mayor/vice president 320 and 3961 candidates for ward councillors.
The counting of the votes would be taken up on April 20 and on the same day the results would be declared. In the previous polls which were held in 2013 an average turn out of 63.65 per cent was recorded in the state.