Madhepura, Oct. 3 :     5 am: As dawn breaks over Bihar?s most famous battleground, the wireless sets get crackling. The messages are lazily directed, asking security forces to mobilise. 8.30 am: There?s a buzz in the air. Ninety minutes into polling, unconfirmed reports trickle in about attacks on rival workers. The voice on the wireless gets sterner: ??Please monitor the deployment of security forces.?? 9.40 am: The control room swings into action as news breaks that an RJD block president has been shot dead. 5 pm: Chaotic scenes at the election office. The place is choc-a-bloc with workers of rival parties waiting to lodge complaints. Poll officials, some of them battered and bruised, recount horrific tales of booth capturing. Madhepura lived up to its reputation of being one of the most troubled constituencies in a state renowned for electoral notoriety. In Chausa block, warriors of the two chieftains ? Laloo Yadav and Sharad Yadav ? got into a verbal duel over the name of a voter. The RJD?s Chausa block president, Kailash Prasad Gupta, tried to intervene. He was shot dead. RJD office secretary Jogendra Prasad Yadav said: ??Gupta was returning from the booth after settling the dispute when somebody fired from a revolver. He crashed on the ground.?? Gupta died on way to hospital. Though the RJD alleged that the Janata Dal(United) was behind the attack, the returning officer refused to say who the assailants were. A tour across the rural areas showed that the booths there were virtually up for grabs. In Pathalghat, 10 men led by two gun-toting RJD workers raided booth number 123 in Kaswas. After asking the voters to clear out, the men snatched the ballot papers and started stamping. They were half-way through their job when a patrolling van reached the booth and chased the men off. One gunman, Ganesh Yadav, was arrested. Yadav said that he was given the double-barrel gun by his neighbour to loot a booth for the RJD. ??I am not at fault. I was just carrying out somebody?s orders,?? he said. At Kamaljari booth, the security forces were not so lucky. A little after noon, 550 of the 769 votes had already been cast. Said polling officer Vindeswari Yadav: ??It is time now for me to seal the ballot box.?? Though the RJD and Dal (Secular) representatives were present, there was no one from the Dal(U). Only after this correspondent started asking questions was he allowed to come near the booth. But he was terrified to talk and turned the other way when asked if the polls had been rigged. The polling officer flew into a rage when asked the same question. ??Ask everyone here,?? he said. There was no one to ask. Neither did he explain how in just four hours, over 80 per cent of the votes had been cast. Two km from this booth, a bigger surprise was in store. The polling station at Sukhasan High School was deserted. Near booth 115, torn ballot papers lay scattered. The ballot box was broken. The indelible ink had been smeared all over the walls and the floor. Trembling in fear, polling officer Janardan Jha said that a group of 50 armed men stormed the booth around noon, kicked out the personnel on duty and went on the rampage. ??There was no security when polling began,?? he added. A company of BSF jawans arrived around 12.45, but by then the damage had been done. Ordinary voters across the constituency blamed the big leaders for the spiralling violence graph. At 11 am, some voters of Udaykishanpur complained that one of Rabri Devi?s brothers was escorting a group of his supporters in police uniform and terrorising the people. But the administration scoffed at the charge. ??Booth capture in police uniform,?? asked Lian Kunga, district magistrate, while noting down the complaint. Others charged Sharad Yadav with flouting ban orders and criss-crossing the constituency along with 25 of his associates, who are allegedly from Madhya Pradesh. At 11.30 am, the district magistrate ordered the police to detain Sharad. But he was not taken into custody. ??My people could not trace him,?? was all Kunga said. The Dal(U) leader, however, brushed aside the allegations. ??This is nonsense. All my supporters are from Madhepura,?? he told The Telegraph. At the election office, allegations flied thick and fast. Sharad?s camp said that the state administration had not assigned adequate security forces to several booths on the ground that they were not ??sensitive??. It is these booths that the marauders chose to attack. At Gamaria, for example, 150 armed men swooped down on the booth, snatched ballot papers and started stamping on them. ??Enraged by this, the rival camp poured water into the ballot box,?? said presiding officer Krishna Ballav Jha. Sharad Yadav said none of the Election Commission?s instructions was followed. ??It is pathetic that the force remained idle while goons went on the rampage,?? he said.