Young Kashmiri voters queue up for polling, voting begins in Jharkhand

Srinagar/Ranchi, 25 November 2014

Young Kashmiri voters queue up for polling

Voters, mainly young men and women, queued up at a polling booth in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, braving temperatures below the freezing point.

Dressed in traditional Kashmiri attire, many young voters were spotted at the Hariganimen polling booth of the Kangan constituency in the district.

The total number of registered voters at this booth are 642 – 335 males and 307 females – of which around 50 votes had been cast by 8.30 a.m.

Mamin, a 20-year-old student, told IANS: “I will vote for somebody who will vote for development of this backward area.”

Voting begins in Jharkhand assembly polls

Balloting began Tuesday in 13 of the 81 assembly constituencies in the first of the five-phase elections in Jharkhand, officials said.

Over three million voters will decide the fate of 199 candidates in the fray in the constituencies spread across six Maoist-affected districts. A total of 3,939 polling booths have been set up for the first phase.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Bahujan Samaj Party are contesting in 12 constituencies each, the Congress in seven and its alliance partner Rashtriya Janata Dal in six.

State Rural Development Minister K.N. Tripathi, Congress’s state president Sukhdeo Bhagat, and former minister and Janata Dal-United candidate Sudha Chowdhary are among the prominent contenders in the phase.