39% voters exercise their franchise in Haryana

An estimated 39 per cent of nearly 1.20 crore voters exercised their franchise in the first six hours of polling for the ten Lok Sabha seats in Haryana today.   

"Nearly 39 per cent have cast their vote by 1 pm. No report of any untoward incident was reported from anywhere in Haryana as polling was going on peacefully," an official of the State Election Department told PTI.   

Among those who cast their votes early included Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former chief ministers Om Prakash Chautala and Bhajan Lal. Voting began at 7 a.M. For the ten seats for which 210 candidates are in fray.   

Official sources said that there was a minor clash incident close to Nangal Chaudhry in Narnaul, which falls in Bhiwani-Mahendergarh constituency, from where Congress' Shruti Choudhry is contesting against INLD's Ajay Chautala. However, the sources said the incident was not poll-related.  

Votes are being cast across 12,894 polling stations, where ballots are being cast electronically, with over 23,000 Electronic Voting Machines being put to use.Key contestants whose fate would be sealed today include Union Ministers Selja and Rao Inderjit Singh, both Congress from Ambala (SC) and Gurgaon respectively, industrialist Navin Jindal (Congress, Kurukshetra), Haryana INLD President Ashok Arora (Kurukshetra), former cricketer Chetan Sharma (BSP, Faridabad) and INLD Secretary General Ajay Singh Chautala (Bhiwani Mahendragarh).  

The four main contenders the ruling Congress, the opposition BJP-INLD alliance, newly formed Haryana Janhit Congress BL and the BSP have put up candidates on all the 10 seats. 

The maximum number of 38 candidates are in fray from Hisar and the lowest number of contestants seven are from Ambala (SC).   The Congress had won nine seats in 2004 parliamentary polls and the BJP one.