Nearly 71 percent voting in Lakshadweep (Third Lead)

Up to 71.36 percent of the electorate voted Thursday in Lakshadweep in peaceful polling for the lone Lok Sabha seat, said an official.

India's smallest union territory Lakshadweep is a group of 36 islands, and has an electorate of less than 50,000.

"There was 71.36 percent voting till 5 p.m. and the voting is going on even after 6 p.m.," an official of the Lakshadweep chief electoral office told IANS.

Six candidates are in the fray.

Forty-four polling stations were set up for the voting that began at 7 a.m., officials added.

The Congress has dominated Lakshadweep ever since its first Lok Sabha elections in 1967, except for the 2004 polls when the Janata Dal (United) won.

Incumbent Congress MP Hamdullah Sayeed, 31, was the youngest member of the 15th Lok Sabha.

It is for the first time that Communist Party of India is fielding a candidate - Najmudheen C.T. - from this Scheduled Tribes reserved constituency.

The remaining five candidates in the fray are: Abdul Muneer of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Mohammed Faizal P.P. of the National Congress Party, M.P. Sayed Mohammed Koya of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Hamdullah Sayeed of the Congress, and Samajwadi Party's Komalam Koya.