Voters’ number falls in graduate seat

darbhanga: there has been a substantial decrease in the number of voters in the darbhanga graduate constituency comprising madhubani, darbhanga, samastipur and begusarai districts in comparison with the poll held in 1996. the poll in the constituency for the legislative council seat will be held on may 2. the number of voters in this graduate constituency during the 1996 poll was 56,853.however, the number of voters this time is only 39,201. thus, the number of voters has witnessed a reduction of 17,652. in the 1996 polls, madhubani district had 18,123 voters, darbhanga 18,625 voters, samastipur 12,431 voters and begusarai 7,674. this time the number of voters has come down to 11,378 in madhubani, 10,268 in darbhanga, 8,590 in samastipur and 8,765 in begusarai district bringing the total number to 39,201.this information was provided by the darbhanga commissioner-cum-returning officer, amita paul, on friday at a press conference. she attributed the decline in the number of voters to rigorous checking of the authenticity of marksheets and the residential addresses of the applicants. the commissioner''s office received 54,235 applications for enrolment as voters in the darbhanga graduate constituency, out of which only 39,201 were found eligible as voters. in darbhanga teachers'' constituency, there has been a marginal decline in the number of voters in comparison with the 1996 polls. while in the 1996 polls, the number of teacher voters was 8,858, this time it has gone down to 8,576. there is a proposal for creating 98 polling booths in a graduate constituency and 78 polling booths in a teachers'' constituency.