10.01 pc polling till 9 am in Guj

An average 10.01 per cent voting was recorded in 26 Lok Sabha seats of Gujarat in the first two hours of polling on Tuesday.

Long queues of voters were seen at some booths even before the polling began at 7 am.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, who is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Gandhinagar seat, were among the early ones to cast their vote in the state.

"Around 10.01 per cent voting was reported till 9 am," an election official said.

The high-octane poll campaign saw Prime Minister Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi holding several rallies in the state.

In the 2014 polls, the BJP won all the 26 seats in the state.

Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Jaswantsinh Bhabhor is the BJP nominee from Dahod seat.

Former minister Bharat Solanki of the Congress is contesting from Anand Lok Sabha seat while Leader of Opposition in state Assembly Paresh Dhanani is the party's nominee from Amreli.

A total of 371 candidates are contesting polls in 26 seats of the state, which has 4,51,52,373 eligible voters, including 10.06 lakh first-time voters and 1.68 lakh divyangs.

Altogether 51,851 booths have been set up for voting across the state.

The bypolls for four Assembly seats of Dhrangadhra, Manavadar,Unjha and Jamnagar (Rural) Assembly seats are also underway and total 45 candidates are in the fray from these seats.

The bypolls were necessitated after Congress MLAs in the four seats quit and joined the BJP.