Rajasthan Assembly Election LIVE UPDATES: 72.7% voter turnout recorded till 5 PM; violent clash among two groups in Fatehpur
Background
Rajasthan Assembly Election: Over 2,000 candidates are in the fray for 199 assembly seats in Rajasthan, where polling started at 8 in the morning but the process was disrupted after reports of malfunctioning EVMs was reported in many areas. Today's voting will determine whether the BJP bucks anti-incumbency and an increasingly aggressive opposition to return to power. Voters will cast at 51,687 polling booths, 259 of them managed exclusively by women officials and security personnel.
In Rajasthan, the contest is largely bipolar between the BJP and Congress in about 130 seats. At about 50 other seats, rebel candidates from both major parties are in the fray, refusing to step down in favour of the official nominees. The BJP is fighting anti-incumbency to retain power in the desert state, which has a tradition of alternating between Congress and BJP every five years. Both parties promised an unemployment allowance to the educated youth. The Congress promised a loan waiver for farmers.
BJP’s Vasundhara Raje hopes to return as the state's chief minister and if the Congress wins, it is expected to pick between former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and state party president Sachin Pilot for the top post in the state. Raje is contesting from Jhalrapatan constituency, considered her bastion. This time she face BJP veteran Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh who has defected to the Congress, complaining that his old party had hurt the pride of the Rajputs by ignoring his father in the last Lok Sabha election.
ALSO READ: Rajasthan Elections: Key Candidates And ConstituenciesIn other constituencies, groups like the Bahujan Samaj Party and rebels who are contesting against official party candidates may queer the pitch.
In the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 12 major rallies and Congress president Rahul Gandhi nine in the state. Both sides fielded their top leaders in the campaign. Election officials said 2,274 candidates are contesting in Rajasthan which has 4.74 crore registered voters. About 1.44 lakh security personnel have been deployed for polling day.
The BJP has fielded candidates for all 199 seats and the Congress for 194. For the five remaining seats, the Congress is in alliance with other parties. The BSP fielded 190 candidates, the CPI (M) 28 and CPI 16. Of the total 4,74, 37,761 registered voters, 2.27 crore are women and 20,20,156 are registered as first-time voters.
In the run-up to the polling, the Election Commission received 3,784 complaints related to violation of code of conduct. Of them, 3,098 were found true. The results will be out on December 11, along with those from the other four states which saw Assembly elections in the past few weeks.
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