THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, April 21: The first-phase voting percentage in Bihar has caused alarm bells to ring in Jharkhand’s Palamu.
Jharkhand’s Palamu is a stone’s throw from Bihar’s Aurangabad, which went to the polls on April 19.
Aurangabad polled 3 per cent less
Aurangabad polled 3 per cent less than what it had recorded in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Aurangabad polled slightly over 53 per cent, and in 2024, it polled 50 per cent.
There is a saying here in Jharkhand’s Palamu. The saying is that Bihar’s Aurangabad and Jharkhand’s Palamu do not behave differently when it comes to voting. These two adjoining districts influence each other.
The doors of the houses in Jharkhand’s Palamu open here, while the windows of the same house open in Bihar’s Aurangabad.
Aurangabad, Palamu share cultures
Jharkhand’s Palamu and Bihar’s Aurangabad share festivals and cultures. Politically, too, these two districts watch each other.
There is another district of Bihar Gaya whose Imamganj police station limits are just on the fringe of the district Palamu. Gaya also polled less.
It is true in the Hindi belt, like Western UP, where voter enthusiasm is gone. In Palamu, the enthusiasm is gone. Voters look fatigued about finding ‘hopeless candidates’ around them again and again.
The Sun can’t be blamed alone for the poor voting percentage. The Sun was not very friendly in 2019. It was hot and hot.
It’s the Common Man who is out of the election. The Common Man feels disenchanted and discontented.
64,000 first-time voters in Palamu
Palamu administration could add 64,000 young first-time voters, but it also made a deletion of 41,000 plus voters.
Ask any poll officer here about ASD (absent, shifted and dead) voters, and the official will start fumbling for words.
Flagging off voter awareness vehicles will never bring voters to the polling stations, and it’s a huge cosmetic waste.
Ratri Chunao Choupal
There’s still some time left for the Palamu administration to hold Ratri Chunao Choupal at a few selected booths with a history of chronic lower voting.
24×7 working CEO in Jharkhand
Suppose Jharkhand polls are poor on May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1 for Dumka, Godda, and Rajmahal seats. In that case, no other officer here in Jharkhand will feel more like a ‘defeated champion’ than the 24×7 working Jharkhand’s Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar, who sources said ‘lives election and breathes election’. All this is due to a higher percentage of voting in Jharkhand, which lagged behind the national average percentage of the Lok Sabha election in 2019.
Will his battery of district election officers / returning officers here in Jharkhand live up to the task of ensuring a higher percentage of voting, or will they become as disenchanted as the Common Man and fare poorly in respect of the voting percentage? Let May 13 and 20 come first.
This Jharkhand Story correspondent spoke to many officials who said, “K Ravi Sir (this shortened version popularly known as chief electoral officer) holds a monsoon of meetings in this hot and dry spell of the cruel summer, but he in each of his videoconferencing details and discusses at length how to plug any gap if it occurs or how to connect voters to booths. Many may find him fond of meetings and VCs, but he remains to be listened to seriously every day.”
