The Election Commission (EC) has made elaborate arrangements for the first phase of the six-phase elections to the 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly that begins on Thursday.
Around 1.07 crore voters, including 50 lakh women, are eligible to exercise their franchise in 47 Assembly segments. As many as 631 candidates are in the fray. The Congress has fielded the maximum number of candidates — 47, followed by the Bahujan Samaj Party with 45 candidates.
The Kadwa constituency will witness a tough competition with 22 candidates in the fray in this segment alone.
A senior EC official said everything, including security measures, was in place for Thursday.
Arrangements for live webcast of the voting process from 20 per cent of the booths had been made, and it could be monitored directly by the district election officers, Chief Electoral Officer at Patna and the Commission in New Delhi.
Among others Ministers of the Nitish Kumar Cabinet, Vijendra Prasad Yadav, Narendra Narain Yadav, Renu Kumari and Hari Prasad Sah, wife of the former MP, Pappu Yadav, and Congress nominee Ranjeet Ranjan and Pradesh Congress Committee president Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser are the prominent candidates in phase-I.
The Commission will use a whopping 13,760 electronic voting machines in this phase. The other phases are scheduled for October 24, 28, November 1, 9 and 20. The counting of votes will be on November 24.
‘Ban opinion polls'
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has urged the Law Ministry to urgently issue an ordinance banning opinion polls and sharing of information from such polls right from the date of notification of the first phase of poll till the completion of polls in all the phases.
“Such a restriction would be in the wider interests of free and fair elections as such opinion polls often tend to cause prejudicial effects on the minds of electors,” said Election Commission Secretary K.F. Wilfred in a letter to the Law Secretary on Wednesday.
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