Nearly 1.61 crore electors, including over 73.8 lakh women, will choose their representatives from a total of 230 candidates.

For the lone Chandigarh seat, sitting Congress MP and former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is pitted against three women - Kirron Kher (BJP), Gulkirat Kaur Panag (AAP) and Jannat Jahan (BSP).

The Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha segment is witnessing a contest between Congress’ Madan Lal Sharma and BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma. State's main Opposition party, the PDP, has also fielded Yashpal Sharma from Jammu-Poonch.

The AAP has added a third dimension to the straight Congress-versus-BJP fight in Delhi which has seven Lok Sabha seats.

An estimated 1.27 crore voters will decide the fate of 150 candidates, including Union Minister Kapil Sibal who is pitted against BJP state president Harsh Vardhan (Chandni Chowk). Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson is trying his luck on the AAP ticket for the East Delhi seat. Also in the fray are former Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken (New Delhi) who is pitted against BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi.

Kerala (20 seats) is the only state in the South that will go to the polls along with those in the Hindi heartland, including Bihar (6 of 40 seats), Madhya Pradesh (9 of 29 seats), Uttar Pradesh (10 of 80 seats), Jharkhand (4 of 14 seats) and Delhi (7). In the West, Maharashtra (10 of 48 seats) and in the East, Odisha will begin the process of electing members both to the Lok Sabha (10 of the 21 seats) and the state Assembly (70 of the 147 seats), in the first phase tomorrow. Besides Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep (one seat each), polling will also be held in one of the 11 segments in Chhattisgarh.

To date, elections have been held on 13 Lok Sabha seats with the voters of the seven north-eastern states setting the bar high. The turnout in these constituencies that voted on April 7 and 9 hovered between 70 and 80 per cent.