Rajasthan Elections / Now the battle is in the hands of voters, today it will be decided whose head will be crowned.

Rajasthan Elections: Complete preparations have been made for the assembly elections in Rajasthan. Voting will take place on Saturday(Today) under tight security. Rajasthan Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said that voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm amid tight security arrangements in 199 constituencies out of total 200 in the state. Elections in this area have been postponed due to the death of Congress candidate and sitting MLA Gurmeet Singh Kunar from Karanpur seat of Sri Ganganagar.

There are a total of 1862 candidates in the state assembly elections and the voters are 5,25,38,105. Of these, there are 1,70,99,334 voters in the age group of 18-30. Of these, 22,61,008 voters will vote for the first time. The total number of polling stations in the state is 36,101. There are a total of 10,501 polling stations in urban areas and 41,006 polling stations in rural areas. Live webcasting arrangements have been made at a total of 26,393 polling stations. 65,277 ballot units, 62,372 control units and 67,580 VVPAT machines including reserve will be used for voting.

A total of one lakh, two thousand 290 security personnel have been deployed to ensure peaceful voting in the state. A total of 69,114 police personnel, 32,876 Rajasthan Home Guard, Forest Guard and RAC personnel as well as 700 companies of CAPFs have been deployed.

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Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Assembly Speaker CP Joshi, former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, Shanti Dhariwal, BD Kalla, Saleh Mohammad, Mamta Bhupesh, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, State Congress President Govind Singh Dotasara, Bhanwar Singh Bhati, Rajendra Yadav, Shakuntala Rawat, Uday Lal Anjana. Many Congress candidates including Hendrajit Singh Malviya, Ashok Chandna are in the electoral fray. In BJP, Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore, former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, MP Diya Kumari, Deputy Leader of Opposition and former state president Satish Poonia, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Kirori Lal Meena and Baba Balaknath are in the fray.

Vijay Bainsla, son of late Gurjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla, is contesting on BJP ticket and former Chief Secretary Niranjan Arya is contesting as Congress candidate. The BJP has re-nominated 59 MLAs, including turncoat Congress MLA Girraj Singh Malinga and six Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha member, while the Congress has given tickets to 97 MLAs, including seven independents and one BJP's Shobharani Kushwaha. Former Nagaur MP Jyoti Mirdha, one of the prominent faces who joined BJP from Congress, is also contesting the elections.

Nagaur MP and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) convenor Hanuman Beniwal is also in the fray. RLP has signed an agreement with Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) led by Chandrashekhar Azad. BJP is contesting on all the seats, while Congress has left one seat (Bharatpur) for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), like in the 2018 elections. Bharatpur seat is currently with RLD and sitting MLA Subhash Garg is contesting as the party candidate.

Apart from BJP and Congress, other parties including CPI (M), Bharatiya Tribal Party, Aam Aadmi Party, RLP, Bharat Adivasi Party, AIMIM are also contesting the elections. More than 40 rebels from both BJP and Congress are contesting the elections. At present, Congress has 107 MLAs, BJP 70, CPI (M) and Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) 2 each, RLP 3, Rashtriya Lok Dal 1, 13 independent MLAs. Two seats (Udaipur and Karanpur) are currently vacant.

Strict security arrangements at polling stations

The Election Commission has said that complete preparations have been made for voting. To conduct free, fair and peaceful assembly elections, 6287 micro observers as well as 6247 reserve sector officers have been appointed. According to the election officer, one additional EVM machine will also be given to all the sector officers, who will take action for repair and replacement if any defect related to EVM is received.

2,74,846 polling personnel, 7960 female polling personnel at women managed polling stations and 796 disabled polling personnel at physically handicapped managed polling stations will take charge. Wheel chairs have been arranged at all polling stations to help the disabled and those above 80 years of age. Three flying squads and the same number of static surveillance teams (SSTs) have been deployed for surveillance on the polling day.

On the day of voting, one additional FS and SST will be deployed at sensitive polling stations. He said that there will be availability of at least three QRTs at each polling station. In order to prevent the entry of unwanted external elements, sealing and checking action will be taken at the check posts along the 4850 km long interstate border with the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.

Security arrangements have been tightened and there will be deployment of more than 1,70,000 personnel, including companies of central paramilitary forces (CRPF, ITBP, CISF, SSB, BSF, RPF etc.) and armed forces of 18 other states.