First phase of Lok Sabha polls today

MANDATE 2004/ Andhra, Orissa, Karnataka to hold simultaneous state polls

Voters in 13 states and three Union territories will exercise their franchise tomorrow in the first phase of the Lok Sabha Elections even as Leftist guerrillas stepped up violence in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The fate of 1,103 candidates, including Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar and several other Union ministers, Congress leaders Ajit Jogi and Shivraj Patil and a host of other political heavy-weights will be sealed in the 140 Lok Sabha constituencies, elections to which are being held amid massive security arrangements.

Simultaneously, voters will also choose their representatives in 147 of the 294 Assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, 120 of 224 in Karnataka and 77 of 147 in Orissa.

An estimated 75.6 million voters are eligible to vote in the elections in which electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being used throughout the country for the first time.

The states going to polls are Assam (6 Lok Sabha seats), Andhra Pradesh (21), Bihar (11), Gujarat (26), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Karnataka (15), Maharashtra (24), Manipur (1), Meghalaya (2), Mizoram (1), Orissa (11), Chhattisgarh (11), Jharkhand (6), Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (1 each). The first phase will cover all constituencies in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

A massive security blanket has been thrown in the constituencies, particularly in Naxal-affected Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar, besides militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, where polling will be held for the Jammu and Baramulla constituencies.

The election commission has identified 22,713 polling stations as 'hyper-sensitive' and 44,171 as 'sensitive'. In J&K, 954 and the 508 polling booths have been described as 'sensitive' and 'hyper-sensitive', respectively.

Almost three-fourths of 15,261 polling booths in bihar have been declared 'sensitive' or 'hyper-sensitive' and shoot-at-sight orders have been issued against booth-grabbers.

Of the 7,748 booths in Jharkhand, 2,346 have been declared 'sensitive' and 4,322 as 'hyper-sensitive'. Banned Naxalite organisations, who have already given a poll-boycott call, have announced a state-wide bandh on April 20 and 26, when the polls would be held in the state.

In Gujarat, 10,492 out of a total of 36,826 booths have been described as 'sensitive'.

Nearly 1,17,000 para-military personnel from the CRPF, CISF, BSF and ITBP have been deployed across the states going to polls tomorrow.

Small contingents of the central forces, mainly CRPF had moved out to insurgency and Naxalite-affected regions for "area domination" in Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh.