Ahmedabad/Chandigarh: Polling began for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat where elections are being held in a single phase amid tight security arrangements.
More than 4.05 crore electors (2.12 crore male and 1.93 crore female) will decide the fate of 334 candidates who are contesting from 26 seats of the state, where the main fight is between the Congress and the BJP.
Prominent among those in the fray are Chief Minister and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi (from Vadodara) and veteran BJP leader L K Advani (Gandhinagar).
Modi casts his vote in L K Advani's Gandhinagar constituency.
Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry is challenging Modi in Vadodara, while senior leader Shankarsinh Vaghela is contesting from Sabarkantha.
The Aam Aadmi Party, striving to emerge as a third alternative in the state, has fielded candidates in 24 seats.
Voting will take place amid extreme heat conditions in the state, with the maximum temperature remaining above 43 degrees Celsius in many parts. Weather forecasters have warned that the extreme heat conditions will continue today also.
The Election Commission of India has extended the time of casting of votes by two hours. They have also made arrangements of water at polling booths.
Elaborate security arrangements have been made with more than one lakh police and para-military personnel being deployed to ensure free and fair polls. The ECI has identified 23 per cent booths out of 45,380 polling stations as vulnerable and critical.
A hectic campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections had ended earlier with BJP aiming for a clean sweep, banking on the "Modi factor", and Congress fighting back to deny it a walk-over.
BJP's campaign is centred around the fact that Modi, "a son of the soil", is the party candidate for the top job. Invoking Gujarati pride, it is seeking to win all 26 seats.
Congress has employed its two big guns, party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi for campaigning in the state. Ahmed Patel, Sonia's political secretary, was stationed in the state to manage the campaign for last few days.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal undertook 'a fact-finding' tour of the state earlier this month, targeting Modi over his development claims.
Simultaneously, voting also began for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab amid tight security where stakes are high in a multi-cornered contest among SAD-BJP combine, Congress and new entrant Aam Aadmi Pary.
Prominent candidates among a total of 253, including 19 women in the state, are Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and his Congress rival Amarinder Singh from Amritsar seat and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's daughter-in-law and SAD MP Harsimrat Kaur and nephew Manpreet Singh Badal of Congress from Bathinda.
Both Amarinder and Jaitley are not registered voters in Amritsar.
Others key contestants include actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna (BJP) and his rival Punjab Congress Chief Partap Singh Bajwa from Gurdaspur, Leader of Opposition in Punjab assembly Sunil Kumar Jakhar (Congress) against SAD's sitting MP Sher Singh Ghubaya from Ferozepur, Congress veteran Ambika Soni against Akali stalwart Prem Singh Chandumajra.
While Congress' Preneet Kaur is eyeing a fourth consecutive win from her traditional seat Patiala, SAD's sitting MP Paramjeet Kaur Gulshan is hoping for a hat-trick from her traditional Faridkot seat.
Besides, AAPs Bhagwant Mann, a comedian-turned-politician is locked in a close fight against Congress sitting MP Vijay Inder Singla, also known to be Rahul Gandhi's protégé and Akali veteran Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa from Sangrur.
Late Chief Minister Beant Singh's grandson and Congress young MP Ravneet Singh Bittu is fighting it out against SAD's firebrand MLA Manpreet Singh Aiyali and another sitting independent MLA Simerjeet Singh Bains from Ludhiana seat.
A total of 1.95 crore voters will seal the fate of 253 contestants during the day when the polling will end at 6 PM.
Of the total voters, 9.35 lakh are first-timers, 92 lakh females and 1.02 crore males. A total of 24,300 EVMs are being used, officials said.
Meanwhile, Punjab's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V K Singh said that comprehensive arrangements have been made to ensure free,fair and transparent Lok Sabha Elections in the state.
"We have chalked out a special security plan to ensure smooth conduct of general elections to Lok Sabha in the state," DGP, Suresh Arora, said.
He said that with mobilization of 59,591 police personnel of state along with 16,119 personnel (199 companies) of paramilitary forces, the state police is fully geared to provide foolproof security for the free, fair and smooth conduct of the polling in all the parliamentary constituencies.
He said that IG/DIG level officers are in field to ensure that the special security plan for the entire state is implemented in letter and spirit.
The DGP informed that 150 special 'nakas' have already been set up at all inter-state entries on Punjab borders touching Haryana, Himachal Pardesh, Chandigarh, J&K and Rajasthan to effectively block the entry of any unscrupulous element during the polling in state.
"Besides this, 15,286 number of special Nakas have been put up throughout the state by utilizing the services of police personnel accompanying polling parties and 1,704 route zone/patrolling parties to check any movement of liquor or money to influence voters," he said.
He said that to check the flow or distribution of liquor Excise Officials have been provided with sufficient security.
The DGP informed that the state has 13,582 polling stations and 22,060 polling booths. He also said that 2442 polling stations have been declared hyper sensitive and 4632 were sensitive and these were being covered either by paramilitary forces/patrolling by district police or micro observers or video cameras or web casting.
The DGP informed that the entire state has been divided into 1704 Sectors (beats) and each sector has been put under a sector in charge deployed by the District Election Officer and was being assisted by a patrolling party comprising of one head constable and three constables.
"A two-tier communication plan has been adopted under which besides providing additional wireless sets the mobile numbers of all sector in charges have been taken to pass or receive any message without any delay.
A new SMS based information system has been prepared and installed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) through which the State Command Centre and the districts will get direct messages from these parties," he informed.
At present Congress had eight MPs, SAD four and its ally BJP has one.
