Twenty-five to thirty per cent voting was reported till noon on Wednesday in the ongoing Delhi State Assembly elections.
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Voters stood in large queues to exercise their right to vote from 8 a.m. this morning. They will elect their candidates for the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari was among the first few voters to cast his vote at the Nirman Bhawan polling booth in the New Delhi constituency. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit also cast their votes at the same venue, while Rahul Gandhi cast his vote at the Aurangzeb Road polling booth, and Priyanka and Robert Vadra cast theirs at the Lodhi Estate booth.
Aam Admi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, who is also contesting from the New Delhi constituency, cast his vote within the first half an hour of polling. BJP chief ministerial candidate Dr. Harshvardhan cast his vote in his Krishnanagar constituency in East Delhi.
Earlier, national capital Delhi went to polls early on Wednesday morning amidst tight security to prevent any untoward incident.
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Over 1.19 crore voters will exercise their right to vote to elect candidates to the 70-member Delhi State Assembly. Over four lakh voters will cast their votes for the first time.
In all, 810 candidates, including 70 females are in the fray.
Voting began at 8 a.m. this morning and will end at 5 p.m.
The Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements to ensure free and fair polls.
Intense vigil is being maintained to keep an eye on the misuse of money and muscle power in vulnerable areas, such as slum clusters and unauthorized colonies. Efforts have also been made to keep check on people coming to Delhi from Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon, who may cast bogus votes during the polls.
Out of 11,753 polling booths, 630 have been declared sensitive. For the first time, webcasting has been introduced in all sensitive booths for live monitoring of proceedings.
About 64,000 police personnel and 107 companies of central paramilitary forces have been deployed to ensure a smooth conduct of the polls.
The Congress, BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party are the main parties to form the next government in the state.
In all, 66, 11, 362 males, 53, 20, 705 females, 4509 service and six NRI voters will be exercising their right to vote. The number of types of assembly constituencies are 58 in the general category; 12 in Scheduled Caste category, non in Scheduled Tribe category.
The Burari Assembly constituency will witness 23 Candidates contesting against each other, while the Patel Nagar assembly constituency will witness only four candidates in the fray.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is fielding 68 candidates in the polls, while the Bahujan Samaj Party is fielding 69. The Communist Party of India (CPI) will field ten candidates, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will field three candidates.
The Indian National Congress will field 70 candidates, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will field nine candidates. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has said that it will field two candidates, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has announced that it will field 70 candidates. About 509 Independents plus others will contest the polls.
Narela is the largest assembly constituency in terms of area at 143.42 square kilometers. The largest assembly constituency in terms of the size of the electorate is Vikas Puri at 2, 82, 632. The smallest assembly constituency electorate wise is Delhi Cantt. At 85,821.
The number of general, expenditure, police and awareness observers deployed is as follows: General (70), Expenditure (18), Police and awareness observers (5).
For the first time, the None of the Above, NOTA option is available to voters in the EVMs who do not find any of candidates suitable.
The NOTA option will be printed in pink on EVMs. The Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi, Vijay Dev has appealed to voters to come out in large numbers to cast their votes and reminded them of the theme slogan "Dil Me Hai Dilli, Vote Karenge.