New Delhi: Voting began at 0700 hrs on Tuesday as polling kicked off to elect representatives from 117 Lok Sabha constituencies across 13 states and two Union Territories in the third of the seven-phase 2019 General Election. The third phase of election is billed as the biggest as it covers the largest number of Parliamentary constituencies in a single phase.
More than 18 crore, 85 lakh voters are going to decide the fate of 1,640 candidates in over 210,000 polling booths in place for smooth conduct of polls, an official statement here said.
Prominent candidates in the fray on Tuesday in the third phase include the presidents of the two main political parties, BJP chief Amit Shah making his Lok Sabha election debut from Gandhinagar in Gujarat and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who is contesting from Wayanad, his second constituency apart from Amethi, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav seeking re-election from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, Supriya Sule, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate from Baramati in Maharashtra and former Congress minister Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala.
The states where polling are being held are: Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal besides the union territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.
Besides all seats in Gujarat (26) and Kerala (20), voting is being held in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, 14 each in Karnataka and Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, five in West Bengal, two in Goa, and one each in Dadra and Nagar Haveli,
Daman and Diu and Tripura.
The electorate is going to cast their ballot from 0700 hrs to 1800 hrs. Polling in East Tripura seat was postponed from April 18 to April 23 after the Election Commission decided that the law and order situation in the state not conducive for holding free and fair polls.
Anantnag Parliamentary Constituency in Jammu & Kashmir is going to the polls in Phase III, IV and V of the General Elections 2019, the only such constituency in the country. Four districts to be covered in the Anantnag are Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama.
While the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 11 saw a voter turnout of 69.43 per cent in 91 Lok Sabha constituencies, polling dipped to 62 per cent in the second phase of elections on April 18, EC officials said. (UNI)
