Polling for all the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana began on Saturday morning amid tight security arrangements, officials said.
The fate of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Congress leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Vinesh Phogat, besides the JJP’s Dushyant Chautala and 1,027 other candidates, will be decided in the polls in which more than two crore people are eligible to vote.
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The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is eyeing a hat-trick of Assembly election wins in the state, while the Congress is hoping to return to power after 10 years.
The counting of votes will be taken up on October 8.
The voting is being held from 7 am 6 pm.
Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pankaj Agarwal had earlier said 2,03,54,350 voters, including 8,821 centurions, are eligible to exercise their franchise.
A total of 1,031 candidates are contesting the election, including 101 women and 464 Independent nominees.
A total of 20,632 polling booths have been set up, Agarwal had said.
Besides the BJP and the Congress, the key contesting parties are the Aam Aadmi PArty (AAP) and the INLD-BSP and JJP-Azad Samaj Party alliances.
In the last Assembly polls in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) 10.
The Congress has left the Bhiwani seat for its INDIA bloc partner CPI(M), while the BJP is not contesting the Sirsa seat, from where Haryana Lokhit Party chief Gopal Kanda is seeking re-election.
Most seats are likely to see a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress.
Prominent among those in the fray are Chief Minister Saini (from Ladwa), Leader of Opposition B S Hooda (Garhi Sampla-Kiloi), Indian National Lok Dal’s (INLD) Abhay Singh Chautala (Ellenabad), JJP’s Dushyant Chautala (Uchana Kalan), BJP’s Anil Vij (Ambala Cantonment), “Captain” Abhimanyu (Narnaund) and O P Dhankar (Badli), AAP’s Anurag Dhanda (Kalayat) and Congress’s Phogat, a former wrestler, from Julana.
From Tosham, former MP Shruti Choudhry of the BJP and Anirudh Chaudhary, both cousins, are contesting.
From Dabwali, Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya Devi Lal, an INLD candidate, is taking on the JJP’s Digvijay Singh Chautala, the great grandson of the former deputy prime minister.
The BJP has fielded former chief minister late Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi from Adampur in Hisar while its nominee from Ateli in Mahendragarh is Arti Rao, whose father Rao Inderjit Singh is a Union minister.
Among the independent candidates are Savitri Jindal (Hisar), Ranjit Chautala (Rania) and Chitra Sarwara (Ambala Cantonment).
Taking on Dushyant Chautala from Uchana is the Congress’s Brijendra Singh, son of former Union minister Birender Singh.
A few rebels from both the Congress and the BJP are also in the fray.
Director General of Police (DGP) Shatrujeet Kapur on Friday said the Haryana Police is fully prepared to ensure a free, fair and peaceful conduct of the election.
Nearly 30,000 police personnel and 225 paramilitary companies have been deployed. An adequate number of home guard personnel have also been deployed.
Adequate police presence will be maintained at the polling booths and other locations. More than 3,616 polling booths have been classified as sensitive and 145 deemed vulnerable, necessitating additional security measures.
To maintain law and order and ensure compliance with the Model Code of Conduct, the state has also formed 516 flying squads, 469 static-surveillance teams and 32 quick-response teams. Additionally, 1,156 patrolling parties are actively monitoring the situation, the DGP said.
Agarwal said of the total voters, 1,07,75,957 are men, 95,77,926 are women and 467 belong to the third gender.
There are 5,24,514 voters aged between 18 and 19 years and 1,49,142 differently-abled voters, of whom 93,545 are male, 55,591 are female and six belong to the third gender.
A total of 2,31,093 voters are aged above 85 years, comprising 89,940 males and 1,41,153 females.
There are 8,821 voters aged over 100 years, including 3,283 males and 5,538 females. The total number of service voters is 1,09,217 — 1,04,426 males and 4,791 females.
The voter turnout recorded in the 2019 Assembly polls was around 68 per cent.
A total of 144 polling stations have been designated as model ones. Besides, 115 polling stations will be entirely managed by women staff, 114 by young government employees and 87 by differently-abled employees.
Webcasting will be conducted at all the polling stations on election day, Agarwal had said earlier.
The CEO had said including reserved units, a total of 27,866 electronic voting machines (ballot units) will be used in this election.
In 2019, the BJP formed the government with the support of the JJP while most of the Independent MLAs had also extended support to the saffron party. However, the JJP’s post-poll tie-up with the BJP ended after the latter replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with Saini as the chief minister in March.
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