Ranchi, May 6 (IANS): Jharkhand on Monday recorded 44.28 per cent voter turnout in the first six hours of polling in the four parliamentary constituencies, an official said.

Till 1 p.m., Koderma recorded the highest voter turnout with 48.70 per cent polling, followed by Ranchi (44.69 per cent), Hazaribagh (44.56 per cent) and Khuti (36.55 per cent), the Election Commission data showed.

Voting started at 7 a.m. and will end at 4 p.m.

Jharkhand Governor Draupdi Mumru, Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, former Chief Minister Arjun Munda exercised their franchise.

Long queues of voters were seen in front of booths in all the four Lok Sabha constituencies. There was a good voter turnout despite the fact that all the four seats, particularly Khuti, are Maoist-affected areas.

A total of 61 candidates are in the fray for the four seats -- 14 in Koderma, 20 in Ranchi, 11 in Khunti and 16 in Hazaribagh.

A total of 65,87,028 voters are eligible to vote on these seats across 8,834 polling booths.

The prominent candidates in the race for these seats are Rajkumar Yadav of the CPI(ML), Babulal Marandi of JVM(P) and Annapurna Devi of the BJP in Koderma; Sanjay Seth of the BJP and Subodhkant Sahai of the Congress in Ranchi; Arjun Munda of the BJP and Kalicharan Munda of the Congress in Khunti and Jayant Sinha of the BJP, Gopal Sahu of the Congress and Bhuneshwar Prasad Mehta of the CPI in Hazaribagh.