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Polling began Tuesday morning for 11 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, including Baramati, where Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule is pitted against Sunetra Pawar, wife of the veteran leader's estranged nephew and Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar.
Polling began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm at the 23,036 polling centres, set up for the third phase of the elections, an official said. The seats where polling is taking place are Baramati, Raigad, Osmanabad, Latur, Solapur, Madha, Sangli, Satara, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Kolhapur and Hatkanangale.
Prominent contestants also include royal scions Shahu Chhatrapati of the Congress in Kolhapur and BJP's Udayanraje Bhosale in Satara as well Union minister Narayan Rane in Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg. Altogether 20.9 million persons are eligible to vote for 258 candidates in the third phase, the official said. There are 10,764,741 male voters, 10,226,946 female voters and 929 from the third gender in the third phase, he said.
In the fourth phase on May 13, a total of 22.8 million voters will decide the fate of 298 candidates in 11 seats, namely Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Raver, Jalna, Aurangabad, Maval, Pune, Shirur, Ahmednagar, Shirdi and Beed Lok Sabha constituencies. Prominent candidates in the fourth phase include minister of state for railways Raosaheb Danve in Jalna and BJP's Pankaja Munde in Beed.
The 13 Lok Sabha seats where polling will be held in the fifth and last phase in the state are Dhule, Dindori, Nashik in North Maharashtra and Palghar, Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Thane, Mumbai North, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North East, Mumbai North Central, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai South. Prominent candidates in the fifth phase include Union minister Piyush Goyal, lawyer Ujjwal Nikam, both of the BJP, and Mumbai Congress president Varsha Gaikwad.
Polling was held on April 19 in the first phase of the general elections in Ramtek (SC), Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST) and Chandrapur seats. The first phase saw a voter turnout of 63.71 per cent.
On April 26, polling was held in the second phase of elections in Buldhana, Akola, Amravati, Wardha, Yavatmal-Washim, Hingoli, Nanded and Parbhani Lok Sabha constituencies. The second phase witnessed a voter turnout of 62.71 per cent.
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