In Chhattisgarh, 20 out of the 90 assembly seats went to polls in its first phase today and recorded a voter turnout of  over 70 per cent. In 2018 assembly election voter turnout was approximately 76.35 per cent.

Though there was an instance of IED blast triggered by Naxalites in Sukma district and a commando of CoBRA got injured the polling continued.

The polling conducted in 2 slots: in the first slot, voting will take place from 8 am to 5 pm and in the second it will be from 7 am to 3 am. The 10 constituencies in which polling starts at 7 am due to Naxal threats are- Mohla-Manpur, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Konta. The remaining 10 constituencies are – Khairgarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Chitrakot, Pandariya and Kawardha.

Among the 223 candidates, 25 are women. And in the 20 seats, 12 are reserved for scheduled tribes and one for scheduled caste category.

As per the Election Commission”s data, there are 40,78,689 eligible electors in the state. Like in Mizoram, women voters (20,84,675) outnumbers men (19,93,936). And the third gender constitute 69.

The main contenders in the election are BJP and Congress. Currently, Chhattisgarh is ruled by Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government. In 2018 assembly election Congress emerged victorious winning 68 seats ousting BJP which gathered only 15 seats.

In the first phase, the prominent candidates in the election include Chhattisgarh Congress chief Deepak Baij (Chitrakot), Ministers Mohan Markam (Kondagaon), Chavindra Karma (Dantewada), Mohammad Akbar (Kawardha), Kawasi Lakhma (Konta), and for the BJP, former chief minister Raman Singh (Ranjangaon).

The second phase of election will be conducted on November 17, and the results will be announced on December 3.