Chhattisgarh votes in phase one of Assembly elections
Updated: November 11, 2013 09:49 IST
A staggering one lakh personnel are guarding just 18 of the state's 90 constituencies that are voting in the first of the two-phase polling.
A staggering one lakh personnel are guarding just 18 of the state's 90 constituencies that are voting in the first phase of two-phase polling.
Four people including a Congress candidate were injured in clashes and live bombs were found at polling stations as the Maoist-hit districts of Chhattisgarh went to polls today under unprecedented security.
The 18 constituencies are in the Maoist strongholds of Bastar and Rajnandgaon districts.
Two live bombs were found outside a polling station in Dantewada. Maoists had put up posters across the state calling for the boycott of the assembly elections.
As polling began this morning, an encounter broke out between Maoists and the Border Security Force or BSF in the Kanker in Bastar.
Chief Minister Raman Singh and three other ministers in the state's BJP government are among 143 candidates whose fate will be decided by nearly three lakh voters today.
Raman Singh, who is aiming at a third term, is contesting from Rajnandgaon. The chief minister's main rival is Congress's Alka Mudliyar, wife of Congress leader Uday Mudliyar, who was killed in a Maoist ambush on May 25 in Bastar.
