An estimated 47 per cent voters today exercised their franchise in bypoll for the prestigious Maharajganj parliamentary seat in Bihar, officials said.
An estimated 47 per cent electors out of a total 14.99 lakh voters cast their ballots in the bypoll which passed off peacefully, Saran District Magistrate and Returning Officer Abhijit Sinha said.
There was no report of any untoward incident from anywhere in six assembly segments - Goriakothi, Maharajganj, Ekma, Manjhi, Baniapur and Taraiya - of the Lok Sabha seat spread over Saran and Siwan districts, Sinha said.
The polling ended at 4 PM in the Naxal-hit Taraiya segment while the exercise concluded at 6 PM in five other segments - Goriakothi, Maharajganj, Ekma, Manjhi, Baniapur, Sinha said.
Elaborate security arrangements were made and 20 companies (2,000 jawans) of the Central Para Military Forces, 10 companies (1,000 jawans) of the Bihar Military Police deployed, besides 7,000 additional policemen in the parliamentary constituency to ensure free and fair polls, the District Magistrate said.
The Maharajganj bypoll was necessitated by the death of the sitting RJD MP Uma Shankar Singh earlier this year.
There are as many as six candidates, including JD-U nominee and Education Minister Prashant Kumar Shahi, RJD's Prabhunath Singh and Congress's Jitendra Swami, in the fray among others.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and a host of Congress leaders and Union ministers had campaigned extensively for their respective candidate for about two weeks.
Counting of votes will be on June 5.
