Rajasthan assembly elections 2018: 41 per cent votes cast till 1pm

JAIPUR: Polling is under progress at a brisk pace in the assembly elections in Rajasthan on Friday. About 41% of 4.74 crore voters had exercised their franchise by 1 pm. Polling is by and large peaceful as no major untoward incident has been reported till now.


According to the state electoral office in Jaipur, Since 8 am till 1 pm the voting percentage was 41.37 per cent. Long queues of voters were reported at polling booths since morning.

EVM malfunctioning

delayed polling at many places as a result people had to wait for hours to cast their votes.

51,687 polling booths have been set up in 199 out of the total 200 assembly constituencies in Rajasthan where polling is going on amid tight security.

The election in Ramgarh constituency of Alwar district was put off following the death of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Laxman Singh.

According to the police officials polling has been going on peacefully and no untoward incident was reported so far.

Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot and other leaders were among the early voters who exercised their franchise.

Raje (Jhalrapatan), Pilot (Tonk), former chief minister Ashok Gehlot (Sardarpura) are among the 2,274 candidates in the fray.

The results will be out on December 11, along with other four states where assembly elections have been held in the past few weeks.

Two youth who tried to impersonate at a polling booth at Shardha Devi Public school in Churu were handed over to the police.

Voting disrupted for over an hour at Triveni Nagar under Sanganeer seat in Jaipur following malfunctioning of EVM. Similarly, at booth number 89 under Jhunjhunu the polling was delayed over an hour due to error in EVM after which the SDO orderd the shifting of booth level officer.

There were reports that the police resorted to mild force to disperse a crowd at Bhawadi booth at Mandal assembly seat in Bhilwara following complaints of some party workers canvassing at the polling booth.

Raje, who is the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, is contesting against veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh in Jhalrapatan, the constituency she has represented since 2003.

Tonk, with a sizeable Muslim population, is a keenly-watched contest between Sachin Pilot and BJP candidate and Rajasthan transport minister Yoonus Khan, who is the saffron party's only Muslim face in the elections.

This is a maiden assembly election for Pilot, a two-time MP who is seen as a chief ministerial candidate if the Congress wins. He has represented Dausa and Ajmer Lok Sabha constituencies in the past.

In about 130 constituencies, the contest appears to be mainly between the BJP and the Congress. While BSP, AAP and independents have made the contest multi cornered at the remaining constituencies.

In the current house, the BJP has 160 seats while the Congress holds 25 seats.

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