14.27 per cent polling till 9 AM

Over 14 per cent voting was registered in the first two hours of polling in 16 assembly seats in tribal Santhal Parganas in Jharkhand in the fifth and final phase of polling today.
People queued up at the polling stations braving the winter morning chill and voting, which began at 7 AM, picked up as the day progressed.
The constituency-wise voting percentage till 9 AM was 15 per cent at Rajmahal, 17 per cent at Borio, 15 per cent at Barhait, 14 per cent at Littipara, 16 per cent at Pakur, 15 per cent at Maheshpur and 15 per cent at Shikaripara, an Election Commission release said.

At Nala it was 11 per cent, at Jamtara 13, Dumka 11, Jama 14, Jarmundi 12, Sarath 14.25, Poreyahat 14.6, Godda 15 and Mahagama 15.2 per cent, the release said.
A report from Pakur said voters of booth number 134 in Litipara constituency did not turn up in protest against lack of basic amenities.
Voting, however, resumed after polling and administrative officials convinced them that their demands would be looked into.

Polling will end at 3 PM in all the 16 constituencies which are spread across six districts - Dumka, Pakur, Godda, Sahibganj, Jamtara. Some parts of Jarmundi seat come under Deogarh district.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren and Speaker Shashank Shekhar Bhokta are among the 208 candidates, who include 16 women, whose fates will be decided today.
Soren is in fray from Dumka, from where he had been elected in 2009 and Barhait and Bhokta from Sarath.
In all, 36,90,069, including 17,84,486 women are eligible to cast their votes at 4,448 polling stations, including 30 auxiliary. A total 149 polling stations are in urban areas.
EC said as many as 833 polling stations have been marked as hyper-sensitive and 1,496 sensitive and 291 polling stations will have web casting.
A total of 22,240 polling personnel, 16 general observers, 10 expenditure observers, 3 police observers, one awareness observer and 1,050 micro observers are deployed to oversee the democratic exercise.

The counting will be taken up on December 23.