J'khand CM, speaker, ministers to try their luck in second

The fates of Chief Minister Raghubar Das, Speaker Dinesh Oraon and ministers Neelkanth Singh Munda and Ramchandra Sahis will be decided in the second phase of polling in Jharkhand on Saturday.

The voting on Saturday will also see the BJP state unit president Laxman Gilua trying his electoral luck.

They will be among the 260 candidates in the fray in 20 assembly seats. Of them 29 are women nominees and 73 are independents.

The polling on Saturday will be second in the five phase assembly election in the tribal state.

Election Commission sources said the EC has deployed polling and security personnel for free, fair and peaceful votes.

The people will exercise their franchise between 7 a.m and 5 p.m in Jamshedpur(East) and Jamshedpur(West) constituencies, while in the rest 18 the time to do so would end at 3 pm, an EC release said.

This was being done to allow polling personnel to travel from the remote areas during shorter winter days to deposit the EVMs in the strong rooms, a government official said.

Das will take on his former cabinet colleague turned independent candidate Saryu Roy in Jamshedpur (East)