- Sat, 31 Jul, 2010, 2:26 am -

Ranchi: The nearly month long Assembly elections concluded with the last phase polling in 16 constituencies. The polling went off peacefully barring few minor incidents. The people braved the Naxal threat and nearly 54% voted fearlessly in large numbers. Except for the first phase the polling percentage has been above 55% in the remaining phases.

The first phase had 65.32 lakh voters and only 52% exercised their franchise for 26 seats. Nearly 55% of the 31 lakh voters cast their ballots for 14 seats in the second phase and for the 11 seats in the third phase 13 lakh people queued up in the polling booths. For the remaining 30 seats in the fourth and fifth phase the turnout was even better with nearly 60% in the fourth and around 55% in the fifth casting their votes. The security arrangement was so tight that no major incident was reported from any constituency and the fearless way the voters cast their votes was ample proof of ballot’s triumph over the bullet.

This year’s Assembly elections had another side to the story. There were 321 candidates (32%) with self declared pending criminal charges contesting the elections. 155 of these have serious charges under the IPC including murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, rape, dacoity and buying minors for prostitution. The ironical part is that all the major Parties had their share of candidates from this lot. JMM tops the list with 22 followed closely by AJSU with 14, RJD 13, Congress 12, AITC 9 and BJP 6.

The elections had 997 candidates vying for the 81 seats. Of these 71 are self declared ‘crorepatis’. Congress Party’s Roshan Kumar Surin and Rameshwar Oraon are amongst the richest with 27.12cr and 14.14cr respectively worth of assets in their name. They are closely followed by the same Party’s Saurabh Narain Singh and Suresh singh with both having above 9cr.assets. On the other hand there were 15 candidates with assets less than ten thousand rupees and including three with zero asset. They are JKM’s Lalmati Devi, IND’s Rajesh Kumar and Amrr Bangalee’s Sunil Das.

JMM’s Bhushan Tirkey was recontesting the 2009 polls and according to his filed affidavit of 2004 his assets were declared as Rs.6000 only and within the span of next five years it shot upto a whopping Rs.67, 33,275. Similarly 36 other candidates recontesting have an increased asset ranging from 5.43% to 2730%! The list includes names of many high profile leaders like Sudesh Mahto, Aparna Sengupta, Sukhram Oraon,C.P.Singh, Satyanand Bhokta, Neil Tirkey, Jaleshwar Mahto, Alamgir Alam, Joba Majhi, Saryu Rai, Sudhir Mahto, Dulal Bhuiyan, Annapurna Devi, Prakash Ram, Girinath Singh, Ravinra Rai, Kunti Devi, Raghubar Das and Chhatu ram Mahto.
It is noteworthy that many of the above mentioned leaders were ministers one time or other in the different governments since the formation of Jharkhand.

Results will be announced by late evening on 23rd and would present a clear picture of the new Assembly. The mood of the people could not be fathomed but one thing was clear that there was no ‘wave’ in favor of any alliance, however tall their claims may be and undoubtedly the ‘man of the match’ was the Election Commission forsuccessfully conducting the elections in a free, fair, fearless and transparent manner as rightfully claimed by them. One only hopes and prays that all the hard work and sacrifices of many does not go waste with another ‘hung’ Assembly and leading to the inevitable ‘horse trading’ that usually follows.

- Compiled by P. Vijay Raghavan