Phase II of rural polls in 74 blocks today

RANCHI: Poll officials, who were deployed to four blocks of Ranchi district for Saturday's panchayat elections, had a feast at the Mukhyamantri daal-bhaat counter at Namkom that had egg curry on its menu on Friday.
Over 70,000 polling officials reached their respective destinations by Friday evening along with ballot papers and boxes for the second phase of the ongoing three-tier panchayat polls.The elections will be held in 74 blocks of 23 districts involving 1,269 gram panchayats.
As against the usual daal-bhaat served on these counters for Rs. 5 per plate, the hosts added egg curry to the menu, but even at Rs 25 a plate, the demand was high and emergency arrangments had to be made to cater to all the officials.
"It is like a win-win situation for all of us because we didn't expect an addition to the menu," said Sukhram Mahto of Bundu who is deployed at booth number 240 in Butro. Jharia Oraon, an employee with the central water board deployed at booth number 146 in Sanni toli, said it was a nice treat by the government.
On Saturday 49,18,761 voters will exercise their franchise on four ballot papers to elect 12,626 representatives. In the second phase, 5,553 of the 15,419 gram panchayat members have been elected un-opposed whereas six of the 1,269 mukhiyas have been elected unopposed.
Out of 1536 posts of Panchayat Samity Sadasya (PSS) 64 people and out of 159 Zila Parished Sadasya (ZPS) one has been elected unopposed. Polling is taking place in 10,042 buildings across state, nearly 40% of them having been declared sensitive.
Ranchi deputy commissioner Manoj Kumar said adequate security has been provided at sensitive booths. "Booths located close to the town will be monitored by mobile security parties," he added.