Bhopal/Aizawl: An average polling of 43.26 per cent was recorded till 1400 hours in 230 assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh where voting is underway amid complaints of EVM malfunction in a dozen seats and incidents of firing in violence-prone Bhind district.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer for Madhya Pradesh, V.L. Kantha Rao told reporters that the average for male voters was 43.92 per cent while that for female voters was 42.73 per cent.
Rao said that incidents of firing in the air had been reported from three or four places from Lahar assembly seat in Bhind. However, none were hurt.
He said that a maximum of 47 per cent of female voters had cast their votes in Susner constituency (Shajapur) while 55 per cent males had exercised their franchise in Narsinghgarh seat (Rajgarh).
There were complaints of malfunctioning of EVms from polling booths in 12 constituencies including Chhindwara, Shahdol, Rewa, Indore, Badwani and Panna. But all of them were rectified within 30 minutes, Rao said.
An assistant poll official in Katni district's Vijayraghogarh seat, K B Shrivastava, died of a heart attack early on Monday, sources said. He suffered heart attack at around 5 AM following which he was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed. The district returning officer has replaced him with the reserve staff.
In Sirmour constituency of Rewa district, votes of 94 people could not be recorded due to fault of the returning officer. Rao said that information about this had been given to the Election Commission which will decide on what has to be done in the matter.
Earlier during the day, polling was boycotted by people at some stations in nine Assembly constituencies including Hoshangabad, Ratlam, Gwalior, Raisen and Umaria.
Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh, brother Laxman and his wife cast his vote from Raghogarh constituency in Guna district.
Digvijay's son Jaiwardhan Singh is contesting polls for the first time as a Congress candidate from this seat.
A total of 2,583 candidates are trying their luck in the elections being held in 53,896 polling booths in 51 districts.
The BJP government led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan is fighting for an unprecedented third consecutive victory in the state. Long queues were seen from morning at many polling booths in major cities of the state, including Bhopal.
Congress will get 140 seats in MP, says Kamal Nath; Sushma sure of BJP's 'huge win'
Polling in three Assembly constituencies of Naxal affected Balaghat district - Baihar, Lanji and Paraswada - started at 7 AM and will end at 3 PM. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Leader of the Opposition in state Assembly Ajay Singh were among those who cast their votes early today in their respective constituencies of Budhni and Churhat.
Strict security arrangements have been made all over the state to ensure smooth conduct of polling although an isolated incident of violence was reported in Bhind area of Madhya Pradesh in the morning.
Polling to elect a new Assembly in Mizoram began at seven on Monday morning with the main contenders - ruling Congress and opposition Mizoram Democratic Alliance comprising MNF, Mizoram People's Conference and Maraland Democratic Alliance - contesting at all 40 seats.
Polling began at 7 AM today with 36.63 per cent votes cast in the first four hours, state joint chief electoral officer H Lalengmawia said.
Brisk polling was reported from many polling stations in Aizawl where long queues were seen in front of the booths in Mission Veng and Thakthing areas even before the elections began. Elderly men and women were brought to the polling stations by their family members to exercise franchise in the early hours.
All the seats are reserved for ST nominees, except Lunglei South which is for general candidates. Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla of the Congress and all his 11 ministers are among the 142 candidates in fray.
Women outnumber men by a margin of 9,806 in the electorate of 6,908,60. While there are 3,50,333 women in the electorate, male voters count 3,40,527.
For the first time in the country, a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system will be tried in this election on a larger scale, in 10 constituencies. It was first experimented in an Assembly bypoll in Nagaland in September.
There are 1,126 polling stations in the state, of which 94, mostly in border areas, have been identified as 'critical' where security has been beefed up. An additional 31 companies of central para-military forces and state police of neighbouring states have been deployed to oversee the polls apart from seven armed battalions of the state police.
Security has been tightened all along the Manipur border as also along the unfenced 64-km border near the tri-junction of Mizoram, Tripura and Bangladesh in Mamit district.
