Rajasthan: 72.09 pc voting in Sardarshahar assembly seat

Jaipur: Bypoll to the Sardarshahar assembly seat in Rajasthan's Churu district saw 72.09 per cent voting, an official said on Tuesday.

The voting was held in 295 booths from 8 am to 5 pm on Monday.

The votes will be counted on December 8.

A total of 2,89,843 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the bypoll necessitated by the death of Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma on October 9.

The Congress fielded late Sharma's son Anil Kumar while former MLA Ashok Kumar was the BJP candidate.

There were eight other candidates in the fray: Lalchand of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), Sanwarmal Meghwal of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Parmana Ram of the Indian People's Green Party and Independent candidates Subhash Chandra, Vijay Pal Singh Sheoran, Umesh Sahu, Prem Singh and Surendra Singh Rajpurohit.

In the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, the Congress currently has 107 MLAs, BJP 71, RLP three, CPI(M) and Bhartiya Tribal Party two each, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) one and 13 are Independents.