 "Lok Sabha elections: Polling underway for 9 seats in Madhya Pradesh")
Voting began Tuesday morning for 9 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh in the third phase of the general elections.
Polling began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm across 20,456 polling stations, including 1,043 managed by women, an election official said. Prominent candidates include Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and former state chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Digvijaya Singh.
Altogether 17.7 million voters will decide the fate of 127 candidates who are contesting from Morena, Bhind (SC-reserved), Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal, Rajgarh and Betul (ST-reserved) seats. These nine Lok Sabha constituencies are spread across 19 districts.
Polling in Betul (ST) constituency was initially scheduled to be held in the second phase on April 26, but was deferred due to the death of a candidate. Altogether 127 candidates, including nine women, are in the fray for the third phase. At 22, Bhopal has the highest number of candidates, while Bhind has the lowest at 7.
The voters include 9.268 million men, 8.483 million women, and 491 members of the third gender, while 166,000 electors are 'divyangjan' (people with disabilities), 88,106 are above 85, and 1,804 others have crossed the age of 100 years, the official said. As many as 525,000 voters are in the age group of 18-19 years.
Polling is being held in 20,456 booths in the nine constituencies. These include 2,043 booths managed by women and 75 by Divyang employees. BJP leader and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is seeking to reclaim the home turf Guna which he lost in 2019 when he was in the Congress.
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BJP veteran and former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is contesting from Vidisha constituency, a saffron fortress he represented five times. He is facing Congress candidate Pratap Bhanu Sharma. In Rajgarh, Congress veteran and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh is pitted against two-time BJP MP Rodmal Nagar.
In 2019, the BJP failed to win the Chhindwara constituency, the only saving grace for the Congress which retained it with party veteran Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath winning the seat. Of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, polling for 12 seats concluded in two phases on April 19 and 26. The remaining eight seats will go to polls in the fourth phase on May 13.