Polling underway for Phase 5 Lok Sabha elections; Over 50 percent turnout recorded till 3 pm

Polling across 51 parliamentary constituencies is underway in 7 States with a total of 674 candidates in the fray. Over 50 percent polling has been reported till 3pm.

While violence marred voting in West Bengal that did not affect the turnout with over 60 percent voters exercising their franchise till 3 pm.

RELATED VIDEO:

14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 12 seats in Rajasthan, 7 seats each in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, 5 seats in Bihar, 4 seats in Jharkhand and 2 seats in Jammu and Kashmir.

Till 3 pm, the voters turnout in Bengal was 62%, 54% in Madhya Pradesh, 45% in Uttar Pradesh, 44% in BIhar and 15 % in Jammu and Kashmir.

The two Congress bastions in Eastern Uttar Pradesh – Rae Bareli and Amethi represented by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Party President Rahul Gandhi respectively are also among those seats where voting is underway

Rae Bareli has been won by the Congress every time but twice since the first elections in 1957 and since 2004, UPA chairperson and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been winning the seat every time.

The BJP has fielded Dinesh Pratap Singh to take on Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli. The BJP bastion in Lucknow is a seat held by the party since 1991 and is currently represented by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh which is up against SP-BSP-RLD backed candidate former actress Poonam Sinha who’s also the wife of Congress’ Patna Sahib candidate Shatrughan Sinha.

Rajnath Singh had won the Lucknow seat in 2014 by a comfortable margin of 2.7 lakh votes. Lucknow was earlier represented by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who won five consecutive elections from the seat and almost every time secured more than 50% of the total votes.

In Jaipur, it’s a clash of Olympians! Olympic silver medalist in shooting and sitting MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in is being challenged by three time Olympian and Congress candidate Krishna Poonia.

Meanwhile, a grenade was lobbed towards Rohmoo polling station in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama where polling is underway for the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. No reports of casualties has been reported in the blast.

Besides, one EVM is reported to have been vandalized at a polling booth in Chhapra in Bihar, whereas polling booths 380, 28 and 96 have been dysfunctional in Amethi. EVM glitch have also been reported from West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar disrupting the polling process.