Chhattisgarh bypoll: 56 pc polling till 2 pm in Chitrakot

Around 56 per cent polling was recorded till 2 pm in the byelection to Chitrakot Assembly seat in Chhattisgarh on Monday, an official said.

Six candidates are in the fray from the Naxal-affected seat, reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) category, where election was necessitated after Congress MLA Deepak Baij got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bastar.

"Polling began at 8 am and by 2 pm, the turnout was 56 per cent," an election official said, adding that voting will end at 5 pm.

Voting was progressing peacefully with long queues of voters, especially women, being witnessed in several places, he said.

BJP candidate Lachhuram Kashyap cast his vote at Kodebeda booth, while his Congress rival Rajman Benzam voted at Irpa polling station.

The presiding officer of Matnar polling booth (booth number 15) was replaced after Chhattisgarh Janata Congress (J) state president Amit Jogi posted a video on Twitter accusing him of directing people to vote in favour of the ruling Congress.

In the video, a man is seen telling something to a voter while he is standing at the EVM (electronic voting machine) compartment to cast his vote.

Jogi accused the ruling party of misusing the government machinery to influence the bypoll.

However, Congress MP Deepak Baij accused the same presiding officer of acting in favour of the BJP.

A total of 229 polling booths have been set up for the bypoll -- 213 in Bastar district and 16 in the neighbouring Sukma district.

As many as 916 polling personnel have been deployed at these booths, the election official said, adding that around 70 booths have been categorised as 'hyper-sensitive' and 93 as 'sensitive'.

Around 8,000 personnel, including paramilitary forces, have been deployed while drones are also being used to keep an eye on the movement of naxals as the assembly seat is part of the insurgency-hit Bastar region, a police official said.