The voting for Lok Sabha election 2019 began on Thursday morning with the commencement of second phase of polling.
Guwahati
Nearly 14 crore people are eligible to vote in second phase. Voters in 95 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats will cast their votes today. Over 15.80 crore candidates are in the fray in the second phase of the general election. Voters across the country will decide who will control the Lok Sabha and four other state assemblies. The 2019 Lok Sabha election is being conducted in seven phases and the results will be declared on May 23.
LIVE UPDATE
TAMIL NADU
- Around 200 voters staged a protest at Purasaivakkam, which falls under the Chennai Central constituency, as their names are missing from the voter list.
- Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo said the 305 EVMs that faced “some technical errors” had been replaced. He added that the 525 VVPATS that “also faced some issues” and had been replaced.
- In separate incidents, two old men who had gone to their polling booths to cast their vote died in Salem and Erode. Both men were above the age of 70.
- Krishnan, a 74-year-old from Vedapatti in Salem, died after casting his vote. The other man fell while waiting in the queue to vote and died.
WEST BENGAL
- Incidents of violence were reported from several places in West Bengal on Thursday during the second phase of Lok Sabha elections.
- The car of Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate in Raiganj, Md Salim, was attacked in Islampur, North Dinajpur district. Salim is also a member of the CPM’s politburo.
- Salim managed to escape and took shelter in the polling station, while his driver managed to escape with the car.
KARNATAKA
- BJP’s youngest candidate Tejasvi Surya votes from Bangalore South
- A total of 2,67,51,893 voters are expected to vote to elect their representative in parliament from among 241 candidates in the fray during this phase.
- The rest 14 seats in the state are to go to polls in the third phase on April 23.
- Among the 241 candidates, 224 are men and 17 women. While the highest number of 31 candidates are from Bangalore North, the least is in Hassan with six candidates.
- Voting is underway in 14 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, where the contest is mainly between the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition and the BJP, in the second phase of parliamentary polls.
- Tension prevailed for a while at Teganahalli in KR Pet taluk of Mandya constituency when many senior citizens found that their votes had already been cast by unknown persons
