Assembly elections: Jharkhand ex-CM Marandi's fate to be decided on Sunday

Ranchi, Dec 13: The fate of former Jharkhand chief minister Babulal Marandi will be decided Sunday in the fourth of the five-phase state assembly polls.

Fifteen of the 81 assembly constituencies will vote Sunday.

A total of 43,48,709 voters, including 20,03,516 women, will decide the fate of 217 candidates including 16 women.

"Balloting for 13 of the 15 seats will take place from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., but will continue in the two constituencies of Dhanbad and Bokaro till 5 p.m.," an Election Commission official said.

Voting will take place at 5,482 polling booths that include 36 auxiliary ones.

Among these, 716 booths have been declared 'very sensitive' and another 2,007 have been declared 'sensitive'.

The poll panel has declared 183 polling booths as model polling stations while webcasting facility will be available at 335 polling stations.

Approximately 27,410 polling personnel would be deployed for election duty Sunday.

Babulal Marandi is contesting from Giridih constituency.

Besides Marandi, the fate of ministers Mannan Mallik of the Congress, Haji Hussain Ansari of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Suresh Paswan of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will be sealed in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

In the 2005 assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its then alliance partner Janata Dal-United had won seven of these 15 seats together. The JMM had won four seats.

IANS