Guajrat Bypolls: 7% voter turnout registered in first two hours

Polling is being held today in nine Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat, vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to the Election Commission, the voter turnout was 7% till 9 am.

The Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, witnessed 5.76% voter turnout till 9 am.

The nine Assembly seats where polling is underway are Maninagar, Anand, Limkheda, Deesa, Matar, Talaja, Tankara, Khambhalia and Mangrol.

Deesa in Banaskantha registered voter turnout of 4.44%; Maninagar recorded 3.67% in Ahmedabad city ; Tankara, 14.37% in Rajkot; Khambhalia, 10.99% in Jamnagar; Mangrol, 10.5%; Talaja, 9.5% in Junagadh; Anand, 7.54% in Anand district and Limkheda registered 6.25%.

Forty five candidates are contesting the assembly seats and four for the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat.

By-polls were carried out for these seats as the sitting BJP MLAs resigned from their posts after winning the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, including Modi, who also vacated the Maninagar seat as the sitting MLA.

Though these seats were held by the BJP, the Congress is hoping to make a dent this time by leveraging the absence of Modi in Gujarat.

The elections are also seen as a litmus test for Chief Minister Anandi Patel, who along with local BJP leaders held whirlwind campaigns in all the nine seats in the previous week.

Maninagar constituency, which was represented by Modi thrice when he served as Gujarat's Chief Minister, witnessed a tepid voter turnout of only 3.6% in the first two hours.

Elsewhere, including the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, few voters cast their ballot during the early hours of voting.

The counting of votes will be conducted on September 17.