India General Elections 2009 - Round one begins
April 15, 2009
The Great Indian Elections fight has begun amid tight security with the first round polling for 124 seats across 15 states and two union territories. 143 million of the country’s 700 million voters cast their vote across 1.85 lakh polling stations to select India’s next government.
Voting has begun at 700 hrs and would end at 1700 hrs in most places, except in naxal-infested areas where it would close at 1500 hrs.
While all 20 seats in Kerala, 11 in Chhattisgarh and two in Meghalaya are going to polls in a single phase today, polling would be held in 13 out of 40 seats in Bihar, 16 out of 80 in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra 13 (48), Andhra Pradesh 22 (42), Jharkhand 6 (14), Orissa 10 (21), Assam 3 (14), Arunachal Pradesh 2 (2), Manipur 1 (2) and Jammu and Kashmir 1 (6). Polling is also underway to 154 assembly segments in Andhra and 70 in Orissa.
Some of the prominent names in this first phase of elections include RJD’s Lalu Prasad, Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Yashwant Sinha, B Dattatreya from the BJP, Renuka Chowdhury, Shashi Tharoor, D Purandeswari from the Congress, Praful Patel from NCP, Akabar Ahmed ‘Dumpy’ from BSP and Manoj Tiwari from the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Elections to all the 543 constituencies would be completed on May 13 and counting will take place on May 16.
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