Heavy polling in Haryana

Enthusiastic ballotting was reported from majority of the booths as polling for 90 assembly seats in Haryana began Wednesday morning.

Voters could be seen queued up at some polling stations even before the official start time of 7 a.m.

Election officials said that at some polling stations, long queues could be seen at 9 a.m. Women voters were also seen queuing up enthusiastically, especially in rural areas.

Over 1.63 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.

Polling will be held at 16,357 polling centres between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

There are 1,351 candidates in the fray, including a record 116 women. Most seats are witnessing multi-cornered contests this time.

The main contest is between the ruling Congress, the main opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Among the early voters Wednesday were Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the country's richest woman Savitri Jindal, INLD candidates Naina Chautala and Dushyant Chautala, who is the Hisar MP, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) president Kuldeep Bishnoi, union Minister of State Krishan Pal Gurjar and former union minister Venod Sharma.