Enthusiastic voters across 59 Lok Sabha seats turned up at polling booths to vote in the sixth phase of general elections on Sunday. In the long queue of voters in Jharkhand's Dhanbad was Yashoda, who had ridden nearly 1300 kilometres from Uttar Pradesh's Noida just to vote in this elections.
Yashoda, who lives in Noida with her brother, likes to ride her Royal Enfield bike which she took to Dhanbad to vote this election. When asked why she took such a long journey in this heat, Yashoda said she had failed to get train ticket and decided to take her bike to Dhanbad.
A test engineer in Wipro, Yashoda has been living in Noida for eight years but she is registered as a voter in Dhanbad. Her family lives in Sindri area of the town.
Elections are being held for four Lok Sabha constituencies - Giridih, Singhbhum (ST), Jamshedpur and Dhanbad - in Jharkhand today.
Voters of Singhbhum and Jamshedpur constituencies experienced a cloudy day while weather in Dhanbad and Giridih is moderate, reports said.
Jharkhand Water Resources Minister and Ajsu party leader Chandraprakash Choudhary, three sitting BJP MPs---P N Singh from Dhanbad, B B Mahato from Jamshedpur and Laxman Gilua from Singhbhum constituencies, are among the 67 candidates, including ten women, in the fray.
Choudhary is facing challenge from JMM MLA Jagarnath Mahato in Giridih while BJPs P N Singh is facing Congress candidate Kirti Azad from Dhanbad.
Azad, who had won the Darbhanga seat in Bihar, has been nominated in Dhanbad by the Congress as per the 'Mahagathbandhan' seat sharing adjustment.
Mahato is taking on JMM MLA Champai Soren from Jamshedpur while former chief minister Madhu Kodas wife and Congress candidate, Gita Koda, is vying for the Singhbhum (ST) seat against Gilua, the BJPs state unit president.
The JMM and the Congress are part of the "Mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) in Jharkhand.
The first two phases for seven Lok Sabha constituencies had concluded on April 29 and May 6 while the fourth and last phase polling will be held on May 19.
(With PTI inputs)
