As voting concludes in Jharkhand Assembly elections, 62.03% voter turnout recorded

Jharkhand recorded an estimated voter turnout of 62.03% till 5 pm for 17 seats in the third phase of Assembly elections on Thursday.

In 12 of 17 Assembly seats voting concluded at 3 pm while in the remaining constituencies, including Ranchi, Kanke, and Hatia, voting continued till 5 pm.

Overall, in this phase, 309 candidates were in the fray for 17 constituencies. Out of the 17 seats, two are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and one for Schedules Tribe (ST) candidates. 

While the highest polling was recorded in the Silli constituency with 76.98 per cent voters casting their votes, the lowest polling was for the Ranchi seat with just 49.1 per cent votes being polled till 5 pm.

The Assembly elections in Jharkhand became a multi-cornered fight with the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) breaking off from BJP to fight the elections on its own and other regional parties such as JVM among others already in the competition.

Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) have entered into a coalition to defeat BJP, which is seeking to return to power under the incumbent Chief Minister Raghubar Das.

The first phase of the election in the state took place on November 30 while the second round was held on December 7.

The fourth phase will be conducted on December 16, and the fifth and last phase on December 20.

The counting of votes will take place on December 23.

(With inputs from agencies)