13% polling registered in MP

Polling is underway for 230 seats to elect a new Madhya Pradesh Assembly. Nearly 13 per cent of over five crore electorate cast their votes in the first three hours on Wednesday, a poll official said.

According to Chief Electoral Officer V.L. Kantha Rao, at over 100 election booths complaints of faulty EVMs and VVPAT machines were received. Some of the faulty machines were replaced within the first hour.

In Ujjain, two faulty electronic voting machines (EVMs) and 11 Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines were replaced by the Election Commission officials.

In Bhuranpur constituency, five VVPATs and two faulty EVMs were replaced by 9 a.m.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan voted with his family in Jait village under Bhudni constituency. He is contesting against Congress' Arun Yadav.

State Congress chief Kamal Nath also cast his vote, after a temple visit along with his family, at a polling booth in Chhindwara.

Polling began at 7 a.m. for three Maoist-affected constituencies in Balaghat district, while votes were cast in the remaining 227 assembly seats starting 8 a.m.

Polling would end in the three constituencies -- Baihar, Lanji and Paraswada -- at 3 p.m, while it would continue till 5 p.m. in all the other constituencies.

The contest is mainly between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, though the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are also in the fray.

Among the 2,907 candidates in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has fielded candidates in all seats, while the Congress is contesting in 229 seats leaving one seat, Jatara in Tikamgarh district, for Sharad Yadav-led Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD).

The BSP has fielded 227 candidates and the SP is contesting in 51 seats. There are 1,102 Independent candidates.

In the last elections, the BJP won 165, Congress 58, BSP four and Independents three.

Over five crore registered voters in the state consists of 2,63,01,300 men, 2,41,30,390 women and 1,389 of the third gender, who would decide the fate of almost 3,000 candidates.

--IANS

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