Voting for the 102 Lok Sabha seats begins today

The General Election begins on Friday and will include up to 102 seats spread across 21 states. Voters may cast ballots at 1.87 lakh polling places, with 16.63 crore of them eligible to do so.

In the first phase of the fight are eight Union ministers, including Nitin Gadkari; two former chief ministers, including Sarbananda Sonowal; and a former governor.

In the first phase, 11,371 voters of the third gender were registered, making of 8.4 crore male and 8.23 female voters. It is possible for almost 35.67 lakh first-time voters to cast ballots. In addition, 3.51 crore young voters between the ages of 20 and 29 are registered to vote.

In the first round, 1,625 candidates—1,491 men and 134 women—will have their fates determined. To transport poll workers and security officials, up to 41 helicopters, 84 special trains, and about one lakh vehicles have been sent into action.

Numerous actions have been made by the Election Commission to ensure a quiet and efficient election process. To ensure the security of the voting process, sufficient central troops have been stationed at polling places.

In addition to placing micro-observers in every voting place, webcasting will take place in over 50% of the polling places. According to the EC, 361 observers in total—127 general observers, 67 police observers, and 167 expenditure observers—had arrived in their respective districts before the polls. In several states, special observers have also been assigned.

According to further information provided by the poll panel, a total of 4,627 flying squads, 5,208 statistics surveillance teams, 2,028 video surveillance teams, and 1,255 video watching teams were maintaining round-the-clock monitoring to firmly and quickly deal with any type of voter inducement.

The EC said that up to 1,374 interstate and 162 international border checkpoints were monitoring the smuggling of cash, alcohol, and narcotics.