RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 23: Around 60.5 percent of voters turned up to exercise their franchise in the Mandar bypoll on Thursday. It was 67 percent in the 2019 assembly elections.
Deputy Commissioner Chhavi Ranjan informed the media that there was a report of 60.05 percent polling while in the 2019 election polling percentage was 67.
Ranjan, however, said the final figure will come by late evening as figures from some of the booths are yet to come.
With the completion of voting the fate of 14 candidates got sealed in electronic voting machines. The voting took place at 433 booths from 7 am to 4 pm. Now, the counting will be done on June 26, 2022.
Though the voting percentage was reduced, locality residents are satisfied. “60 percent turnout in a bypoll is not bad. This suggests that people exercised their franchise with enthusiasm,” a resident of Chanho, Saquir Ansari, said.
After the election, three main contestants of the election, including Shilpi Neha Tirky of the Congress party, A Owaisi supported independent candidate Deo Kumar Dhan, and Gangotri Kujur of the BJP and their supporters expressed their satisfaction with the polling and claimed that they were winning.
“We are going to win with a margin not less than 30000 votes,” claimed Shilpi supported by Sudhir Minz while returning from Lapung. Dhan expected his victory by a comfortable margin saying “Muslims have respected the words of Owaisi.” Kujur said she is ‘going to win by a margin of at least 15000 votes.’
