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A voter waiting in queue to cast his vote suffered a heart attack and died at a polling booth in Bihar's Rohtas. The 50-year-old, identified as Heeralal Mahto, collapsed while he was standing in the queue for his turn to vote.
The incident happened at a polling booth set up in Udaipur Madhya Vidyalaya Wednesday morning.
Polling began Wednesday morning in 71 assembly constituencies of Bihar in the first phase of three-phase elections amid tight security and COVID-19 guidelines in place. Of the nearly 2.15 crore electors eligible to exercise the franchise, 1.12 crore are male voters, 1.01 crore are female and 599 are categorised as third gender.
About 33 of the constituencies in the first phase have been declared as “sensitive or hypersensitive” constituencies. As many as 31,371 polling stations have been set up in this phase and as many Electronic Voting Machines and Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines are being used.
Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) Jitendra Kumar told PTI-Bhasha that paramilitary forces have been deployed in adequate strength at all polling stations and the buildings housing them. The local police has also been used to supplement the paramilitary forces wherever required, he said, adding the services of home guard jawans will also be taken at polling stations for works like maintaining the queue.
