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Ranchi ( Jharkhand) : The 3rd Phase of General Elections to Jharkhand Legislative Assembly was held on December 12, 2019, in 17 Assembly Constituencies (ACs) spread over eight districts: Kodarma, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Ramgarh, Giridih, Bokaro, Seraikella-Kharsawan, and Ranchi. The poll went off peacefully without any incident with very enthusiastic participation of voters including PWDs, senior citizens, and youth. No complaint regarding EVM/VVPAT was reported on the day. The voters’ turnout figure received till 5 pm was 62.03%. The final voters’ turnout in 2014 for these 17 ACs was 64.02%.
Altogether 5,342 out of 7,016 polling stations (more than 76.14%) were categorised as critical and accordingly adequate security arrangements were made as 188 polling stations required dispatching polling teams two days in advance.Three choppers were deployed to drop 160 polling personnel. The Third phase of polls covered 56,18,267 voters including 10,365 service voters and 63,616 PwD voters. Three hundred nine candidates including 32 female candidates were in fray in this phase of polls and 7,336 volunteers facilitated bringing PwD voters from their houses to the polling stations.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) had put in place an elaborate mechanism to curb the misuse of money power. Total value of seizures across the State till December 12, 2019, is Rs 16.75 crore. The newly developed Booth App to let voters know about the number of voters in the queue was used successfully in three Assembly Constituencies of Phase-III, viz., 23-Ramgarh (405 polling stations), 25-Hazaribagh (486 polling stations) and 63-Ranchi (370 polling stations).