Over 74% of the 4.74 crore voters in Rajasthan exercised their franchise in the Assembly election on Friday, amid reports of stray incidents of violence and malfunctioning of electronic voting machines at several polling stations.
The highest turnout of 87.48% was recorded Pokhran, known for the 1998 nuclear blasts, in Jaisalmer district.
Polling was held in 199 of the 200 constituencies. The election was countermanded in Ramgarh seat of Alwar district under Section 52 of the Representation of the People Act following the death of Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Laxman Singh. He died of a heart attack on November 29.
Voter resentment
The Congress is counting on the anti-incumbency factor to win in the State, with the ruling BJP facing a major challenge in retaining public support for its policies despite its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, helping mobilise its cadre. The high polling percentage could be an indication of the resentment among the people.
There were reports of some EVMs developing glitches, which delayed voting in a few polling booths. The voters protested against the slow speed of polling at a booth in the Sanganeri Gate area of Jaipur. Votes were cast at 51,687 polling booths, 259 of which were managed exclusively by all-women staff.
Miscreants torched motorcycles and threw stones in the Fatehpur constituency of Sikar district, where the polling process was stopped for half-an-hour.
Bid to capture booth
An attempt at booth capturing was made at Nadbai in in Bharatpur, where the police arrested two persons on charges of disrupting the polling.
In other isolated incidents, three persons were injured in a clash between the supporters of the BJP and Congress candidates at Deeg in Bharatpur, while a jeep taking the voters to a polling station at Bajju in Bikaner district was set on fire. The Congress candidate from Bansur, Shakuntala Rawat, was allegedly attacked by some persons, but the security personnel controlled the situation.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police jawans, posted at a polling booth in Alwar’s Shahjahanpur, resorted to lathicharge to disperse a crowd which gathered on the spot after a man was stopped taking a video on his cellphone inside the booth.
The pace of polling, which was slow in the morning at most of the places, picked up in the afternoon, with long queues in several towns. In some remote areas, the voters who were allowed inside the polling stations till 5 p.m. were casting votes till late in the evening.
Apart from Ms. Raje, against whom the Congress has fielded Rajput leader Manvendra Singh, the BJP heavyweights include Rural Development Minister Rajendra Rathore from Churu, former BJP State president Ashok Parnami from Jaipur’s Adarsh Nagar and Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria from Udaipur.
In the Congress camp, PCC president Sachin Pilot is contesting the Assembly polls for the first time from Tonk, while former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is the party candidate in his home turf of Sardarpura in Jodhpur.
Leader of the Opposition and Jat leader Rameshwar Dudi is contesting from Nokha and former Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal from Kota.
During the 2013 Assembly election, the BJP had won 163 seats and Congress 21 with the highest-ever voters' turnout at 75.04%, while 63.02% polling was recorded in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. In the last round of by-elections in February this year, the Congress wrested the Ajmer and Alwar Lok Sabha seats and the Mandalgarh Assembly seat from the BJP.