Jharkhand, Wednesday 25 November 2009: Polling began on Wednesday at 7 am for the first of the five-phase assembly elections in Jharkhand under air surveillance and tight security, state election commission sources said.

With the minimum temperature hovering around 9 degree Celsius at many places, men and women wearing woollen garments were seen queueing in front of different booths in all the 26 assembly constituencies going to the polls, to exercise their franchise.

A total of 470 candidates, including 34 women, are in the fray with 6,532,234 voters to cast votes between 7 am to 3 pm. The opening and closing time for the polling has been advanced in view of the naxal threats and poll boycott announced by the left wing extremists in the constituencies.

Former legislators Hemlal Murmu, Suraj Mandal (JMM), Furkan Ansari (Cong), ex-Speaker Alamgir Alam (Cong), ex-minister Raghuvar Das (BJP), Saryu Roy (BJP) and ex-minister Pradeep Yadav (JVM-P) are among the prominent candidates whose electoral fate would be decided today.

The high-pitch campaigning for the first phase saw the multi-crore money laundering case allegedly involving former Chief Minister Madhu Koda and his associates raised by different parties, with Congress and BJP blaming each other for ‘nurturing’ Koda.

In their respective manifesto, BJP promised rice and wheat at Re one to BPL families while Congress declared to give rice and wheat at Rs three.

(PTI)