Phase IV of the Assembly election passed without incident in the 15 seats that voted on Monday.

In these constituencies, 62.54 per cent voters exercised their franchise, the turnout 2.12 percentage points less than the 2014 Assembly election when 64.66 per cent voters had cast their votes in these constituencies, Jharkhand chief electoral officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said.

The two adjacent constituencies, Chandankiyari (74.50 per cent, 1.08 percentage points higher than 2014) and Bokaro (50.64 per cent, 2.83 percentage points less than 2014) recorded the highest and lowest polling respectively.

Though 48 ballot units, 50 control units and 121 VVPAT machines were required to be replaced, polling was not disrupted, Choubey informed.

He said 92.43 per cent of the 64,318 voters with disability in cast their votes.

Jharia resident Shailesh Kumar said: “we were apprehensive about violence due to the tough contest between two heavyweight candidates Ragini Singh of the BJP and Purnima Singh of the Congress) but thank god everything passed off peacefully in all booths including in my locality at Hetlibanch.”

Shekhar Sinha, a lawyer who voted in Dhanbad along with his wife Suchitra Singh, said: “We were apprehensive about the bad weather, but eventually it turned out to be a dry day.'