Brisk voting as India undergoes sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls
While 18 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots, there are a total of 2076 candidates in the fray across 117 constituencies.
In West Bengal more than 65 percent votes were cast by 3 pm.
According to reports, Madhya Pradesh witnessed 45 per cent turnout till 2 pm. In Tamil Nadu the turnout was nearly 48 percent till 1 pm while in Puducherry it was 54 per cent till the same time. Voter turnout in Assam till 1 pm was 53 per cent.
Mumbai voter turnout till 1 pm was 26.7 per cent.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur cast their ballots in Assam.
They cast their votes at the polling booth at Dispur Government Higher Secondary School.
Singh and Kaur are listed in the Dispur legislative assembly constituency under Gauhati Lok Sabha constituency.
While voting is more or less peaceful so far in India, in West Bengal the opposition parties have alleged that EVM machines were tampered with in Balurghat from where Trinamool Congress has fielded theatre personality Arpita Ghosh.
Opposition said the EVM machine in a polling station showed all votes going to Trinamool Congress. Opposition has demanded repoll in two polling stations. There were reports of bomb throwing in Domkol in Murshidabad district too.
Violence was reported from Assam too. Reports said a cop was lynched after an EVM machine malfunctioned. Iin Gossaigaon, Kokrajhar the BSF had to fire to control the crowd.
In tinsel town Mumbai in Maharashtra, several Bollywood personalities cast their votes. Rekha, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan were seen casting their votes besides cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Polling is being held in all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, 19 of 48 in Maharashtra, including Mumbai, 12 of 80 in Uttar Pradesh, 10 of 29 in Madhya Pradesh, 7 of 40 in Bihar, 7 of 11 in Chhattisgarh, 6 of 14 in Assam, 6 of 42 in West Bengal, 5 of 25 in Rajasthan, 4 of 14 in Jharkhand, 1 of 6 in Jammu & Kashmir and the one seat in Puducherry.
The big names whose fates will be decided on Thursday are Union Ministers Salman Khurshid, Milind Deora, Namo Narayan Meena, Jitendra Singh and Tariq Anwar, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, actor-turned BJP leader Hema Malini, former Indian cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin and President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
