Bihar voting percentage elections 2020 LATEST updates: Over 52 percent of the total 2.85 crore electors in 94 constituencies of Bihar exercised their franchise till 6 pm in the second phase of voting on Tuesday, according to Election Commission's Voter Turnout App.
According to the Voter turnout mobile application, the estimated overall voter turnout at 5 pm was recorded at 47.56 percent. Muzaffarpur district reported the highest voter turnout at 53 percent, followed by Paschim Champaran at 52.73 percent, and Gopalganj at 51.94 percent.
After completion of nine hours of voting, Bihar on Tuesday registered 44.49 percent voter turnout in second phase of Assembly polls.
Muzaffarpur still remained ahead of the 16 other districts recording 51.37 percent turnout so far, followed by Khagaria at 50.05 percent.
At the bottom is Patna with a voter turnout of 26.61 percent.
Muzaffarpur is still ahead of the 17 districts voting today with a turnout of 41.25 percent, followed by Paschim Champaran, which recorded 39.43 percent. The district that has seen the lowest turnout so far is Darbhanga at 26.73 percent.
Muzaffarpur remained the top district with the maximum turnout of 39 percent till 1 pm. While, Patna was at the lowest with 19.48 percent.
Narendra Modi in Araria district said that the 'double engine' government of the NDA will ensure that the development in Bihar takes place at twice the speed as before.
The election is being held amid tough campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is the de-facto face of the NDA, even though Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is the official candidate.
Notable among the candidates is RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, the opposition Grand Alliance’s Chief Ministerial candidate, who is seeking re-election from Raghopur in Vaishali district.
The highest turnout was registered in Gopalganj with 10.75 percent voters casting their ballots as of 10 am. Whereas, Khagaria district saw the lowest turnout at 5.12 percent.
Voting for second phase began at 7 am on Tuesday and so far Bhagalpur is the only district to have registered a voting percentage of 1.50 percent.
Over 2.85 crore voters will cast ballots for 94 seats in the second phase of the Bihar Assembly polls between 7 am and 6 pm today (Tuesday, 3 November) amid precautions against the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1,500 candidates are in the fray.
However, polling in eight Naxal-affected constituencies including Raghopur, Paru, Minapur, and Alauli will be held only till 4 pm, said Chief Electoral Officer HR Srinivasa.
The first phase on 28 October saw a voter turnout of 55.69 percent and the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) HR Srinivas in his report said that repolling was not required in any of the 71 seats.
In the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections, the second phase of polling in 32 constituencies across six Maoist-affected districts recorded a voter turnout of 55 percent.
The overall voter turnout in the 2015 elections was 56.91 percent, up from 52.7 percent in 2010. Notably, the poll percentage among women at 59.92 percent exceeded that of men (56.8 percent) as per a report in The Times of India.
As per the Election Commission's data, of the 1,463 candidates contesting in the second phase on Tuesday, 1,316 are men, 146 are women and one is transgender. Of the total 2,85,50,285 voters, 1,50,33,034 are male, 1,35,16,271 female and 980 transgender.
Polls will be held in West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda, and Patna.
The poll panel said it has set up 41,362 booths at 18,823 polling stations.
Among the major parties, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is contesting 56 of the 94 seats while its ally Congress is contesting 24. The CPI and CPM, which joined the Grand Alliance recently, are fighting four seats each. Quite a few seats are being contested by the CPI(ML), the Left outfit with the strongest presence in Bihar.
BJP candidates are in the fray in 46 of the seats, while another 43 are being contested by those with JD(U) tickets. Mukesh Sahni's VIP, the latest entrant in the NDA, is contesting the remaining five.
The LJP is contesting 52 seats, including the two it had won in 2015 contesting as an NDA constituent. The party has fielded one transgender candidate, too, in this phase.
Maharajganj has the maximum number of 27 candidates for any constituency while Darauli (04) has the lowest.
Key candidates
Notable among the candidates is RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, the chief ministerial candidate of the Opposition Grand Alliance’s, who is seeking re-election from Raghopur in Vaishali district. Tejashwi has been aggressively trying to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor against the Nitish Kumar government.
The 31-year-old had wrested the seat back for his party from the BJP’s Satish Kumar in 2015. The BJP leader had defeated Yadav’s mother Rabri Devi, a former chief minister, in 2010.
The BJP has fielded Satish Kumar, hoping that the leader will be able to do a repeat of 2010 when, like this time, JD(U) president and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was with the NDA.
Tejashwi’s elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav has shifted his base from Mahua in Vaishali and is trying his luck from Hasanpur in Samastipur district.
There were said to be feared in the RJD camp that Tej Pratap’s bid to retain Mahua could be challenged by the NDA through his estranged wife Aishwarya as its trump card.
She is already taking an active part in the campaign for her father Chandrika Roy in Parsa, which he has represented a number of times and is seeking to retain on a JD(U) ticket this time.
All the four Assembly segments in the capital city – Patna Sahib, Kumhrar, Bankipur and Digha – also going to polls in the second phase. The BJP had won all four seats in 2015.
State minister Nand Kishore Yadav is in the fray trying to retain Patna Sahib for a seventh consecutive term.
Multiple-term MLA Nitin Nabin faces a challenge in Bankipur from Congress candidate Luv Sinha, who is the son of actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a two-time local MP.
Seven constituencies of Nalanda district, to which chief minister belongs, also go to polls in the second phase.
The JD(U) has suffered a setback in the reserved Rajgir seat where its sitting MLA Ravi Jyoti, a former police inspector, is now the fray on a Congress ticket.
Two other ministers Ram Sevak Singh (JDU) and Rana Randhir Singh (BJP) are trying their luck from Hathua and Madhuban in Gopalganj and East Champaran districts respectively. The ministers are sitting MLAs from the respective seats.
There are 243 seats in Bihar Assembly. The term of the current Assembly is due to end on 29 November.
The third and final phase of polling will be held on 7 November and the results will be declared on 10 November.
With inputs from PTI
