Newskarnatka – New Delhi

New Delhi: The second phase voting in Chhattisgarh which took place in 72 constituencies of 19 districts started at eight in the morning on Tuesday November 19.

It was learnt that only about 15 per cent of the electorate had cast their votes in the first initial hours of polling meanwhile, EVMs were changed at around 10 polling stations due to some technical problems.

State Governor Shekhar Dutt exercised his franchise in Raipur city north seat where the contesting members are BJP’s Srichand Sundarani and Congress’s sitting MLA Kuldeep Singh Juneja.

In the second phase of poll about 843 candidates are contesting from an assembly of 90-member in the state, where it is speculated that BJP would win over the Congress.

The polling continues in the central and the north Chhattisgarh, where 72 each from the BJP and Congress, are contesting, and over a lac security force personnel have been deployed across the state to ensure peaceful polling.

Around 80,000 officials have been involved for conducting the poll today.

Few of the contesting members are  Dharamlal Kaushik (Bilha); Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar (Rampur); School Education Minister Brijmohan Agrawal (Raipur city south); Housing and Environment Minister Rajesh Munat (Raipur city west); Health Minister Amar Agrawal (Bilaspur); Water Resources Minister Ramvichar Netam (Ramanujganj); Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Hemchand Yadav (Durg city); Agriculture Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu (Abhanpur); Punnulal Mohile (Mungeli); Revenue and Rehabilitation minister Dayaldas Baghel (Nawagarh; President of BJP Ramsewak Paikra (Pratappur); Leader of Opposition Ravindra Choubey (Saja), wife of the former chief minister Ajit Jogi; Renu Jogi (Kota), son of late PCC chief Nandkumar Patel; Umesh Patel (Kharsiya) and Ajit Jogi’s son Amit (Marwahi).