Over 25 per cent polling was reported in the first few hours, a state election official said here.
At Patiala, an Electronic Voting Machine was broken by some people due to which polling stopped for a while but it restarted after a new EVM was brought in, the election department spokesman said, adding that the old data from the broken EVM will be retrieved.
The polling to the municipal corporations is considered to be the litmus test of the popularity of the second term of the Parkash Singh Badal government.
The polling is being held for 50 wards of Patiala, 75 wards of Ludhiana, 58 wards of Jalandhar and 64 wards of Amritsar.
Two wards of Jalandhar had gone unopposed to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which also bagged one ward of Amritsar.
The key contest is between SAD-BJP alliance and opposition Congress.
In the present corporations, Jalandhar corporation is being held by BJP, Amritsar by BJP and Ludhiana and Patiala by SAD.
