The fate of 59 candidates will be decided by 45,26,691 voters in Jharkhand's first phase of polling in three Maoist-affected Lok Sabha seats on Monday.

The first phase of elections involve Lohardagga, Chatra and Palamu seats.

The leading candidates include central Minister Sudarsan Bhagat from Lohardagga. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won all three seats in 2014.

The polling will take place in 6,072 polling booths spread across the three constituencies.

In Chatra, there is a triangular fight involving Sunil Singh of the BJP, Manoj Yadav of the Congress and Subhash Yadav of the RJD while in Lohardaga Sudarshan Bhagat of the BJP will take on Sukhdeo Bhagat of the Congress.

In Palamu, the main battle is between V.D. Ram of BJP and Ghuran Ram of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Campaigning for Bhagat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the people that his government had worked for every section of the society including Christians. Lohardagga constituency has a significant Christian population.

Chamra Linda, who secured third position in 2014 owing to his large following among Christian community by securing more than 80,000 votes, has extended support to the Congress candidate.

In 2014, the BJP candidate won by just 6,000 votes margin.

--IANS

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