Patna : The second phase of staggered assembly elections in Bihar ended on Friday with about 54 percent of the 8.58 million electorate voting in 32 of the 243 constituencies, officials said.
The polling was peaceful as millions defied Maoist threats to troop to more than 8,800 polling centres across six districts to decide the fate of 456 candidates including former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi.
The main battle for power is between the BJP-led four-party alliance and the Grand Alliance of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
As many as 23 of the 32 constituencies where ballotting took place were known Maoist hubs. Polling in 11 of them ended at 3 pm and in 12 others an hour later to enable officers to leave the area before sunlight fades.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer R. Lakshmanan told IANS that the polling was slow initially but picked up later — a la the first round of voting on Monday.
According to him, women again voted in large numbers.
As the day progressed, the queues outside polling booth turned serpentine, reports from various constituencies said.
The two main coalitions fighting it out in Bihar are the ruling JD-U and its allies, the RJD and the Congress, as well as the BJP and its allies including the LJP, HAM and RLSP. Among the key contestants on Friday were HAM leader and former chief minister Manjhi, Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary and BJP leader Prem Kumar, one of the contenders for the chief minister’s post.
