The fifth and final phase of polling to elect a new legislative assembly in India’s Jharkhand state ended on Friday.
The approximate voter turnout was 71 percent and the approximate voter turnout for all 81 assembly constituencies across all five phases of polls in Jharkhand was 65 percent, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said in a media note on Friday evening.
Over four million people were eligible to vote to decide the fate of 237 candidates.
In the last assembly elections held in the state in 2014, the ruling BJP won 44 seats. The opposition Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Indian National Congress won 16 and six seats respectively, while the rest were won by smaller parties and independents.
Jharkhand is the third Indian state to go to polls after parliamentary elections in May.
Currently, the BJP is in power in the State. It was also in power in the two other States of Haryana and Maharashtra where assembly elections were held in October and November.
In Maharashtra, the BJP was ousted by a three-party opposition alliance comprising of the Shiv Sena (its one time ally), the Congress party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), after it failed to win a majority.
