55% voter turnout in second phase of Bihar polls

PATNA: Defying the Maoist threat, brisk polling was recorded in the second phase of the Bihar election held in 32 seats spread over six Maoist-hit districts on Friday with the voters’ turnout surpassing the previous record by 3%. The turnout of women, who have been outnumbering men at polling booths since 2005, was again more than that of male voters by 5%.They also improved their own turnout record by 7% since the 2010 polls.
Quoting initial reports, the Election Commission said 55% of the 86.13 lakh voters exercised their franchise. In 2010, the poll percentage was 52.03% while in 2014 Lok Sabha election, the turnout was 52.21%. The voting percentage is likely to increase after the final computation. Altogether, 456 contestants, including 32 women, were in the fray on Friday.
Like in the first phase, women took the lead in exercising their franchise. The percentage of women voters on Friday was 57.5 compared to men’s 52.5%. In 2010, the poll percentage of women in these districts was only 50.1% while that of men was 53.1%.

Polling was peaceful in all the six Maoists-hit districts: Kaimur, Rohtas, Arwal, Jehanabad, Aurangabad and Gaya, located on both flanks of the river Sone. “We are thankful to the people that they came out in large numbers to exercise their franchise,” chief electoral officer of Bihar, Ajay V Nayak said at a press meet held on Friday.
Nayak added, “We had held extensive voter awareness drives in these areas. The indication is the poll percentage has reached an all-time high in these areas and will not increase exponentially in immediate future.”
“As a part of women empowerment initiative, for the first time, seven booths in Gaya town were completely managed by women polling officials,” Nayak said. To encourage the first timers, the
Gaya district administration, in a novel initiative, issued colourful certificates to them. A 104-year-old woman in Bhabhua constituency was the oldest to vote on Friday. Burqa-clad women were also seen in long queues awaiting for their turn to vote.
Voting commenced at a slow pace at 7am on Friday with only 5.83% people exercising their franchise in the first hour. Within two hours, over 20% people had cast their votes and by noon, the poll percentage climbed to 35.63%. Kaimur was the first district to cross the 50% mark at 2pm.
A number of women said they came out to vote only after performing the Navratra prayers, with Friday being the fourth day of the nine-day-long festival.
Kaimur, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his last election rally, saw a maximum voter turnout of 57.86%, though it was about 1% less than in 2010. It was followed by Jehanabad at 56.49%, Gaya (55.54%), Rohtas (54.66%) and Arwal (53.21%). The lowest polling was recorded in Aurangabad at 52.5%.
Helicopters and UAVs kept vigil from the sky while 993 companies of security personnel were deployed on the ground. Altogether 39 electronic voting machines (EVMs) went out of order and had to be replaced. At least 34 persons were arrested and two IEDs recovered.