About 57 per cent polling; FIRs lodged against BJP and RJD workers

Garwah (Jharkhand), Apr 1 (UNI) About 57 per cent of the voters exercised their right to franachise in Garwah today for the March 29 byelection for Palamu Parliamentary seat.

The polling process, at the four booths here, passed off peacefully except for an incident of altercation between the BJP and RJD workers near a polling booth at Ranka Kala area.

Separate FIRs were lodged at Ranka police station against the BJP and RJD party workers after an altercation between local RJD MLA Girinath Singh's nephew Dilip Singh and some BJP workers.

Repolling began at 0700 hrs and ended at 1600 hrs at booths - 185, 195, 197 and 202 in the district.

Earlier, polling was cancelled in the four polling booths following complains of certain anomalies.

Counting will be held on April 2.

Altogether 15 candidates were in the fray, including Jawahar Paswan(BJP), Prabhat Bhuiyan(JVM-D) and Ghuran Ram(RJD).

On March 29, an estimated 13.66 lakh electorate exercised their franchise in the Naxal-dominated Palamu bypoll, which was necessitated after Manoj Bhuiyan(RJD) quit his Lok Sabha membership, following the cash-for-query scam.

UNI