Brisk polling in Maharashtra, heavy in Haryana

Chandigarh/Mumbai: Brisk polling was under way across Maharashtra, with people queuing at many polling stations while enthusiastic ballotting was reported from majority of the booths in Haryana as polling for assembly seats in both the states began Wednesday morning.

Voting started for the 288 Maharashtra assembly constituencies and the lone Lok Sabha by-elections for Beed parliamentary seat at 7 a.m. Wednesday amidst tight security.

Among the early voters were former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and his family members in Baramati, Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Vinod Tawde and his family in Mumbai, Pankaja Munde in Beed and actor Rekha in Mumbai.

Polling was briefly suspended at two polling stations in Nagpur and one in Nashik owing to a technical glitch. The details are not yet known.

There was tight security at all the 91,376 polling stations across the state, including more than 9,900 classified as 'hyper-sensitive'. Besides, there are another 62 'sensitive' polling stations in Mumbai.

An electorate of around 8.35 crore is eligible to cast their vote and elect 288 representatives from among 4,119 candidates in the state, including 276 women.

The Beed Lok Sabha by-election is being held to fill the seat that fell vacant following the death of former union minister Gopinath Munde last June.

In Haryana, voters could be seen queued up at some polling stations even before the official start time of 7 a.m.

Election officials said that at some polling stations, long queues could be seen at 9 a.m. Women voters were also seen queuing up enthusiastically, especially in rural areas.

Over 1.63 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.

Polling will be held at 16,357 polling centres between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

There are 1,351 candidates in the fray, including a record 116 women. Most seats are witnessing multi-cornered contests this time.

The main contest is between the ruling Congress, the main opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Among the early voters Wednesday were Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the country's richest woman Savitri Jindal, INLD candidates Naina Chautala and Dushyant Chautala, who is the Hisar MP, Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) president Kuldeep Bishnoi, union Minister of State Krishan Pal Gurjar and former union minister Venod Sharma.