Chhattisgarh: 78% voter turnout in Khairagarh assembly bypoll

Raipur: Voting for Khairagarh by polls started at 7 am on Tuesday morning and was concluded peacefully around five o’clock in the evening. 78 % voting has been occurred up to 5 pm. However, official final figures related to voting yet to be announced.

Up to 3 pm more voting percentage remained 65.68 %. Despite long queues at some polling booths, voter turnout remained lower than last assembly polls.

However, this time more female voters were seen at the polling booths.

Around three o’clock 65.04% males and 66.33% females reported cast their votes.

For Khairagarh bypolls, administration has constituted 291 polling centres and around 2.11 lakh voters were expected to cast their votes.

Including candidates of Congress, BJP, JCCJ, ten aspirants were trying their luck in Khairagarh bypolls are:

Yashoda Verma- Congress, Komal Janghel- BJP, Narendra Soni Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCCJ) Mohan Bharti- Rashtriya Jansabha Party, Aruna Banafar- Independent, Sadhuram Dhurve- Independent, Nitin Kumar Bhandekar- Independent, Viplav Sahu- Forward Democratic Labour Party, Dhalchand Sahu- Ambedkarite Party of India, Santoshi Pradhan- Gondwana Gantantra Party

District Election Officer TP Sinha appealed to the voters to exercise their voting rights without any fear and influence.

Apart from 291 polling centres, 53 polling centres situated in naxal infested areas were marked as sensitive and 86 centres were categorized as sensitive due to political reasons. Around 1, 164 government employees and workers were reported engaged to conduct the polls peacefully.

However, in the context of winning the elections Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel again claimed that he has full faith that voters will surely favour the Congress candidate and she will win.

Ex-CM Dr. Raman Singh also expressed his feelings and said, his party's candidate will win.

However, the final winner will be declared after the counting of votes on April 16.

Published on: Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 08:03 PM IST