More than 41 per cent of the over four crore electorate cast their votes in the first five hours of the Rajasthan Assembly elections, a poll official said.
Till 1 p.m., around 41.37 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the state’s 51,687 voting centres in 199 assembly constituencies.
The polling percentage was 6.42 till 9 a.m. and 22.85 till 11 a.m. It picked up rapidly in the next two hours as long queues were seen outside the polling units, Chief Electoral Officer Anand Kumar said.
About 4.74 crore people will decide the fate of 2,274 candidates in the fray for the 200-member Assembly. Of them, 189 women are contesting in 199 constituencies. There are also 20,20,156 first time voters in the state.
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje voted at a polling booth in her Jhalrapatan constituency in Jhalawar district, while Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Congress leader Sachin Pilot voted at a polling booth in Jaipur.
“I think people have seen the kind of work that has taken place in Rajasthan and I think they will go out and vote for development,” Raje said after casting her ballot.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is fighting anti-incumbency, is contesting on all seats while the Congress has left six seats for its allies.
The Mayawati-led BSP has fielded 190 candidates, the Communist Party of India-Marxist 28 and the Communist Party of India 16 candidates. There are 830 Independent candidates.
The election in Alwar district’s Ramgarh constituency has been postponed due to the death of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Laxman Singh.
The Congress’ key candidate, Pilot, who is fighting an assembly poll for the first time said: “There are people who never visited the state and have come only for campaigning. The state has suffered a lot under Raje.”
Polling that began at 8 a.m. will continue till 5 p.m. Counting of votes will take place on December 11 along with four other states — Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.