Rajasthan: Electioneering ends for bypoll to 4 assembly seats

Electioneering for the September 13 bypoll to four assembly constituencies - Weir, Kota-South, Nasirabad and Surajgarh - in Rajasthan ended on a peaceful note today.
According to Rekha Gupta, a senior official at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), campaigning ended on a peaceful note at 1800 hours. Polling will be held from 7 AM to 6 PM on September 13.
As many as 23 candidates, including four each of ruling BJP and opposition Congress, are in the fray. About 8.95 lakh voters -- 4.70 lakh men and 4.24 lakh women -- are eligible to exercise their franchise in the four assembly seats, she said.

There are about 2.40 lakh voters in Surajgarh seat of Jhunjhunu district, 2.17 lakh in Weir seat of Bharatpur, 1.95 lakh in Nasirabad seat of Ajmer, and 2.41 lakh in Kota-South seat.
Over 950 polling stations will be set up in all the four constituencies, of which 242 have been marked as "critical".
The bypolls were necessitated after the sitting MLAs -- Sanwar Lal Jat (Nasirabad), Om Birla (Kota-South), Santosh Ahlawat (Surajgarh) and Bahadur Singh Koli (Weir) -- resigned from the assembly following their election to Lok Sabha.

The counting of votes will be held on September 16, Gupta said.

To ensure free and fair polling, 16 companies of para-military forces, eight companies of Rajasthan Armed Constabulary, and 6,000 policemen would be deployed in all the four constituencies, Special DGP (Law and Order) Navdeep Singh told PTI.
On an average seven armed policemen would be deployed at a polling booth, which is three times more than the deployment during the last assembly and Lok Sabha polls, the DGP said.