Residents cast their vote at a polling centre in the village of Jaula in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh
By 3 on Thursday afternoon, more than 54 per cent of the electorate had turned up to vote. In considerable contrast, national capital Delhi had recorded only a 35.36 per cent voter turnout with three hours of polling left on in the third phase of the general elections 2014. (
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Polling is being held today in 91 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies in 11 states and three union territories. The Election Commission said that at 3 pm, polling had picked up in the 10 seats of UP and in Haryana. It was almost 50 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir where polling was held for one seat. (
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And Chandigarh, which has seen a high-decibel contest ever since the BJP and Aam Aadmi Party para-dropped actors Kirron Kher and Gul Panag respectively to take on former minister and sitting MP Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress, had a 42.03 per cent voter turnout by 3 pm. (
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But voting was sluggish in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, while in the 10 seats of Maharashtra where polling was held, only about 30 per cent voters had turned up by 3.
Today's contest features several top leaders including seven union ministers, among them Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal and Ajit Singh; then there is former BJP president Nitin Gadkari, retired Army chief General VK Singh and Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar. (
Mega battle today for India's national election: top 10 facts)
Among those who voted early in Delhi were Congress president Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal who declared that his Aam Aadmi Party would win all seven seats in Delhi.
The Congress, which lost control of Delhi after the assembly polls in December, says that setback will be reversed in the general elections. (
Delhi: 1.2 crore voters to decide between BJP, Congress and AAP)
The ruling Congress has much at stake today. It holds 45 of the 91 seats where polling is being held - all seven seats in Delhi, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, six in Bihar, 10 each in Haryana, Odisha and Maharashtra, all 20 in Kerala, four in Jharkhand, nine in Madhya Pradesh and one seat each in Chhattisgarh and in Chandigarh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshwadeep and Jammu and Kashmir.