Voting began at 7 a.m. across the 51 Lok Sabha constituencies spread over the seven states, largely in the Hindi heartland, in the fifth of the mega seven-phase electoral exercise.
New Delhi:
More than 40 per cent voting was recorded in the fifth phase of polling across 51 constituencies in seven states till 1 p.m. on Monday, the Voter Turnout App data of the Election Commission (EC) showed.
West Bengal recorded the highest with 50.78 per cent followed by Jharkhand (45.98 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (42.77 per cent), Rajasthan (42.61 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (35.15 per cent), Bihar (32.27 per cent) and Jammu and Kashmir 11.35 per cent).
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported during polling in seven seats of West Bengal with around 33.47 per cent of nearly 1.17 crore voters casting their ballots in the first four hours, officials said.
Militants lobbed a grenade towards a polling station in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir where polling is underway for the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency, police said.
Union Minister Smriti Irani on Monday alleged that the Congress workers were capturing booths and forcing voters to cast their vote for the Congress. Irani tweeted a video of a woman who claimed that she was made to vote for the Congress. The woman said that one of the officials forcibly put her finger on the Congress button. She told reporters that Rahul Gandhi was now resorting to stealing votes.
A total electorate of over 8.75 crore is eligible to exercise their franchise in this phase which covers the remaining 12 constituencies in Rajasthan; 14 in Uttar Pradesh, including the high-profile Amethi, Rae Bareli and Lucknow seats; five in Bihar; seven each in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh; four in Jharkhand; and two in Jammu and Kashmir, including Anantnag, where the third and final phase of polling is underway.
In the 2014 elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 39 of these 51 seats -- all 12 in Rajasthan, 12 of 14 in Uttar Pradesh, seven in Madhya Pradesh, three of five in Bihar, all four in Jharkhand and one of two in Jammu and Kashmir.
Among the 674 candidates in this phase, prominent ones include Congress President Rahul Gandhi from his traditional Amethi constituency where he faces Union Minister Smriti Irani, his mother and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi from neighbouring Rae Bareli, and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who faces actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha's wife Poonam Sinha (Samajwadi Party) in Lucknow.
Also contesting are Union Ministers Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore - who faces fellow Olympian Krishna Poonia in Jaipur (Rural) - and Jayant Sinha (Hazaribagh), former Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi (Trinamool Congress) in Barrackpore, and actress-turned-BJP leader Locket Chatterjee in Hooghly.