Chhattisgarh: Bypoll to Chitrakot Assembly seat on Monday

Voting for the bypoll in Naxal- affected Chitrakot Assembly constituency of Chhattisgarh will be held on Monday for which all elaborate security arrangements have been made, an election official said.

Six candidates are in fray from the seat, reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, where polling will be held from 8 am to 5 pm, he said here on Sunday.

The bypoll was necessitated after Congress MLA Deepak Baij got elected to the Lok Sabha from Bastar constituency.

"All preparations have been done for conducting a free and fair bypoll in Chitrakot," the official said, adding that 229 polling booths have been set up 213 in Bastar district and 16 in the neighbouring Sukma district.

As many as 916 polling personnel have been deployed at these booths.

Around 70 booths have been categorised as 'hyper- sensitive' and 93 as 'sensitive', he said.

Polling parties left for their respective booths on Sunday morning under the strict supervision of security forces, he said.

As many as 1,67,722 people,including 79,218 men, 88,503 men and one from the third gender, are eligible to cast their votes, the official said.

During voting, web-casting will be carried out from 22 polling booths, he