Voting in Madhya Pradesh: Polling begins, 2,533 in fray for 230 seats

Polling began Friday morning for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh where 2533 candidates including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his predecessor Kamal Nath are in the fray for 230 assembly seats in a largely straight contest between the ruling BJP and the opposition CongressPolling is being held from 7 am to 6 pm in all the assembly segments except in Baihar Lanjhi and Paraswada seats in Balaghat district 55 booths in Mandla districts Bichhiya and Mandla seats and 40 polling stations of Dindori district all Naxalite affected where voting time is 7 am to 3 pm an official saidThe singlephase voting covering all the 230 assembly seats 47 of them reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 35 for Scheduled Castes has more than 56 crore registered electors the official saidMock poll was conducted in the presence of authorized polling agents 90 minutes before the actual start of voting the official saidVoting is underway in 64626 polling stations set up in the state They include 64523 main booths and 103 associate sahayak stations where the number of voters is more than 1500As many as 56058521 voters including 28782261 males 27199586 females and 1292 third gender persons are eligible to exercise their franchise The voters also include service and overseas electorsA total of 2533 candidates of political parties and independents 2280 males 252 females and one third gender person are vying to enter the state assemblyThe number of critical voting stations is 17032 while 5260 booths have allwomen polling staff the official saidBooths which recorded very high turnout or witnessed any sort of violence during previous elections are designated as critical polling stationsAs many as 183 polling stations have been set up for persons with disabilitiesFor the first time 371 youthmanaged booths have been set up while the number of model polling stations stands at 2536Fiftyseven green booths environmentfriendly centres 50 in Jabalpur and seven in Balaghat have also been established he saidFor maintaining law and order during polls prohibitory action was taken against 190233 persons and 269318 licensed weapons were deposited with authorities the official said adding 1142 FIRs first information reports were registered for violation of the poll codeIn the 230 assembly seats spread across 52 districts a total of 73622 Ballot Units BUs 64626 Central Units CUs and 64626 VVPAT Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail units are being used for conducting pollingVVPAT system keeps a physical trail of all votes cast It allows voters to verify their votes are cast as intendedBesides Chief Minister Chouhan Budhni and state Congress president Kamal Nath Chhindwara three Union ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP Narendra Singh Tomar Prahlad Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste are contesting the pollsBJP general secretary Kailash Vijaywrgiya is contesting from Indore1 and three Lok Sabha MPs of the saffron party Rakesh Singh Ganesh Singh and Riti Pathak are also in the fraySenior Congress leader Digvijaya Singhs son and exstate minister Jaivardhan Singh and former chief minister Arjun Singhs son Ajay Singh are contesting from their traditional Raghogarh and Churhat seats respectivelyBesides main contenders for power Congress and the BJP the Aam Aadmi Party the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party among others have also fielded their candidatesThe highdecibel campaigning came to an end on Wednesday evening Top leaders crisscrossed the state addressing rallies holding road shows trading charges and making a slew of promises to seek votes for their candidatesThe electioneering saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi Union Home Minister Amit Shah BJP president JP Nadda Union minister Rajnath Singh and Chouhan among others addressing rallies to drum up support for the saffron party nomineesCongress president Mallikarjun Kharge party leaders Rahul Gandhi Priyanka GandhiVadra Nath and Digvijaya Singh among others addressed rallies to seek support for their party nomineesModi made nine visits to the state and addressed 14 public meetings after the elections were announced The BJP is heavily banking on his charisma to retain powerThe Congress with 114 seats emerged as the single largest party after the 2018 polls and formed the government with the help of BSP SP and independent MLAs under the leadership of Kamal NathHowever the Nath regime collapsed in March 2020 after a rebellion by now Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Congress MLAs loyal to him paving the way for the return of the BJP government headed by ChouhanThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever