New Delhi, April 19
In the country's first-ever "e-election," over 175 million electorate would decide the fate of 1,103 candidates, including 81 women, in the fray for 140 Lok Sabha seats and 344 assembly segments by clicking the button on the electronic voting machines tomorrow.
The first of the five phases of polling to elect MPs for the 14th Lok Sabha is being held in 13 states and three Union Territories.
The Election Commission has set up 1,86,555 polling stations for this phase. Electronic voting machines will be used at all places and polling will be held for 10 hours, from 7 am to 5 pm.
The commission has declared more than 35.33 per cent of the polling stations sensitive and hypersensitive in the phase one of polling for the Lok Sabha.
Of the 1,86,555 polling stations, the Commission has identified 22,585 polling stations as hypersensitive and 43,732 as sensitive.
While Bihar with 6,369 hypersensitive polling stations tops among the states going to the polls tomorrow, Gujarat has 10,492 stations identified as sensitive.
The most candidates in a single constituency figure in Jammu, 23 of them.
The prominent personalities involved in the first phase of polling include Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani (BJP), who is contesting from Gandhinagar (Gujarat), and former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular) from Kanakapura, Karnataka.
The April 20 polling will cover the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Mizoram (which have one member each in the Lok Sabha), all 11 seats from Chhattisgarh, 26 from Gujarat and two from Meghalaya, 21 of the 42 from Andhra Pradesh, six of the 14 from Assam, six of the 14 from Jharkhand, 15 of the 28 from Karnataka, 24 of the 48 from Maharashtra, 11 of the 21 from Orissa, 11 of the 40 from Bihar and two of the six from Jammu and Kashmir.
Simultaneous assembly polls are being held in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa in the constituencies falling under the Lok Sabha seats where voting will take place.
Polling for the elections to the Lok Sabha and four assemblies is being held in five phases, on April 20, 22 and 26 and May 5 and 10.
The counting of votes will be done on May 13, except for the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, where it will be taken up on May 11.
