Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Voting starts slow across India. Should NDA be smiling?
The election season is on with voting for the first phase of elections getting underway underway in the 91 Lok Sabha seats spread across 20 states and two union territories in the first phase.
Union minister Kiren Rijiju, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat and YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy were among the early ones to cast their vote.
The first phase covers all the Lok Sabha constituencies in Andhra Pradesh (25), Telangana (17), Uttarakhand (5), two seats each of Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Meghalaya and one seat each of Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar as well as Lakshadweep.
Eight seats of the total 80 constituencies of UP are also up for votes today.
There are a total of 14.21 crore electors in phase 1, of which 7.22 crore are male and 8.99 crore are female.
A total of 1,279 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of the general election.
Voting for 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases: April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19. Counting will be done on May 23.
According to reports, 7.58 per cent people had cast their votes in Bihar. In Telangana, 10.6 per cent had voted till 9am.
Interestingly, a higher voter turnout was seen in the Northeast where 18.12 per cent voter turnout recorded till 9 am in West Bengal, 17.5 per cent in Mizoram, 10.2 per cent in Chhattisgarh and 15.6 per cent in Manipur.
A slow voting pattern tends to favour the incumbent whereas high voter turnout shows high anti-incumbency.
In UP, Saharanpur saw 13 per cent, Kairana 11 per cent, Muzaffarnagar 12 per cent, Meerut 11 per cent, Bijnor 11 per cent, Baghpat 10.19 per cent, Ghaziabad 12 per cent, and Gautam Budh Nagar 10.70 per cent voting till 9am.
The overall percentage till 9 am was: 13.3 per cent voter turnout has been recorded till in Arunachal Pradesh. Telangana has seen 10.6 per cent, Andaman and Nicobar Islands 5.83 per cent, Assam 10.2 per cent and Arunachal Pradesh 13.3 per cent.
Polling has been mostly peaceful so far with a stray case of tension being reported at Ellamanda village of Narasaraopeta Mandal in Guntur district after workers of the YSR Congress Party allegedly tried to disrupt polling in the area.