Campaigning for the five-phase Jharkhand assembly elections came to an end on Wednesday as political leaders made a last-ditch effort reach out to voters ahead of the final phase of voting on December 20.
Sixteen assembly seats, including seven reserved for tribal candidates, will go to polls in the final phase on Friday.
“Campaign for the final phase ended at 3pm in five constituencies, while it concluded at 5pm in rest of the 11 constituencies,” said Vinay Kumar Choubey, chief electoral officer, Jharkhand.
Results will be announced on December 23.
A total of 1,216 candidates from 81 assembly constituencies spread across 24 districts are in poll fray. Over 23 million voters were eligible to exercise their franchise.
Top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP executive president JP Nadda, home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, road, transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, Union minister Smriti Irani and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, among others, campaigned in the state. CM Raghubar Das, too, campaigned extensively.
The ruling BJP won 37 seats of the 81 seats in 2014 assembly polls. It formed the government with the support of five candidates of All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU).
The alliance of three opposition parties — the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) — are gearing up to throw a challenge.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressed half a dozen rallies in the state, while Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi held a rally on Wednesday. JMM working president Hemant Soren and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, too, addressed several rallies.
LK Kundan, political observer and associate professor of political science department of Ranchi University, said, “The BJP spoke of development in campaigns for first three phases. Later, issues such as Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Ram temple and Article 370 took centre stage…” He said the JMM, Congress, the RJD looked united during the campaigning and focused on issues such as tribal land rights, job loss, hunger deaths and price rise.
Meanwhile, the BJP on Wednesday lodged a complaint with the Jharkhand State Election Commission, demanding action against Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Hemant Soren over “hurtful” comments on Hindu religion purportedly delivered by the JMM working president during a poll rally in Pakur.
In its letter, a copy of which was made public, the BJP alleged that Soren in the rally delivered an “inciting” speech that hurt the sentiments of not only people of Jharkhand but crores of Hindus in the country. “Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi (Vadra), who was on stage had neither prevented Soren from making the controversial speech nor condemned it publicly,” it said.
BJP working president J P Nadda also held an election meeting at Sarath in Deoghar where he said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has changed the culture of politics…it now means service to people, development…”
