LIVE | Phase 3 of Lok Sabha polls records 61.78% voter turnout

Voting began at 7 am on Tuesday for four constituencies in Assam to decide the political fate of 47 candidates in the third and final phase of Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Polling will end at 5 pm in Guwahati, Barpeta, Dhubri and Kokrajhar seats.

Prominent candidates include AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal who is seeking re-election for the fourth successive term from Dhubri, Congress MLA Rakibul Hussain, eight-time Asom Gana Parishad legislator Phanibhushan Choudhury, CPI(M) MLA Manoranjan Talukdar and the two women contestants of Guwahati - Bijuli Kalita Medhi of the BJP and Mira Borthakur Goswami of the Congress.

Altogether 82.11 lakh voters, including 40.84 women and 112 belonging to the third gender are eligible to exercise their franchise in 9,516 polling stations.

Security arrangements have been tightened for the final round of Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Polling began at 7 am on Tuesday for seven of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, in the third and last phase of general elections in the state. Polling will end at 6 pm.

Polling is being held in Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Korba, Janjgir-Champa (SC reserved), Surguja (ST reserved) and Raigarh (ST) seats in the third phase.

There is heightened security in place with the deployment of 202 companies of Central forces and more than 60,000 personnel of police force and District Reserve Guard, the official said.

Altogether 168 candidates are in the fray in the third phase, the official said.

The main contest lies between the BJP, which won 10 seats in the three general elections after 2004. In the 2019 polls, the BJP bagged nine constituencies and Congress got two seats.

A total of 1,39,01,285 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the third phase. In the high-profile Raipur seat, state minister and BJP leader Brijmohan Agrawal is facing off against former MLA Vikas Upadhyay of Congress.

In Korba seat, the BJP has fielded its influential woman leader and former MP Saroj Pandey against Congress' sitting MP Jyotsana Mahant, wife of the incumbent leader of the opposition Charandas Mahant.

A total of 168 candidates, including 26 women, are in the fray. The eligible voters include 69,33,121 men, 69,67,544 women and 620 members of the third gender.

At 38, Raipur has the maximum number of contestants, followed by 37 in Bilaspur, 27 in Korba, 25 in Durg, 18 in Janjgir-Champa, 13 in Raigarh, and 10 in Surguja.

Of the 11 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, Naxal-affected Bastar (ST) seat voted on April 19, and Rajanandgaon, Kanker (ST) and Mahasamund voted in the second phase on April 26.

Bastar seat recorded a turnout of 68,29 per cent, Rajnandgaon 77.42 per cent, Mahasamund 75.02 per cent and Mahasamund 76,23 per cent.

The Congress has fielded a fresh face in Rajendra Sahu from Durg against sitting BJP MP Vijay Baghel.

Bilaspur constituency is seeing a battle between incumbent MLA Devendra Yadav of Congress and former MLA Tokhan Sahu of BJP.

In Janjgir-Champa, the lone seat reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, former state minister Shivkumar Dahariya of Congress is pitted against BJP nominee Kamlesh Jangde.

Surguja seat is seeing a contest between BJP's Chintamani Maharaj, who defected from the Congress before the last assembly polls, and Congress' Shashi Singh, a fresh face.

BJP's Radheshyam Rathiya and Congress' Dr Menka Devi Singh, who belongs to the erstwhile royal family of Sarangarh, will square off against each other in the tribal-dominated Raigarh seat.

Polling has started for both the Lok Sabha seats in Goa, where 16 candidates are in the fray.

Voting began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm, an election official said.

More than 11 lakh voters in the coastal state are eligible to exercise their franchise in North Goa and South Goa seats, where the ruling BJP and opposition Congress are locked in a straight fight.

The contest in North Goa has BJP MP Shripad Naik taking on Congress' Ramakant Khalap. In South Goa, the BJP has fielded entrepreneur Pallavi Dempo against Navy-veteran-turned politician Viriato Fernandes of the Congress.

The South Goa Lok Sabha seat is currently held by Congress' Francisco Sardinha.

Sixteen candidates, eight each in North and South Goa Lok Sabha constituencies, are in the fray.

Goa has 11,79,644 voters, including 5,80,710 in North Goa and 5,98,934 in South Goa. They include 5,71,617 men, 6,07,715 women and 12 members of the transgender community.

A total of 1,725 polling stations have been set up across the coastal state, including 863 in North Goa and 862 in South Goa.

To empower women voters and promote gender equality, 40 dedicated polling stations, also known as ‘pink booths’, have been set up in both districts, the official said.

Polling began for five Lok Sabha seats in Bihar on Tuesday morning, amid tight security, officials said.

The voting started at 7 am in Araria, Jhanjharpur, Supaul, Madhepura and Khagaria, all currently held by the NDA, and will continue till 6 pm, they said.

Over 98 lakh voters will decide the electoral fate of 54 candidates in these five seats in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP holds Araria, where sitting MP Pradeep Singh's bid to retain the seat has received the main challenge from RJD's Shahnawaz, whose late father Taslimuddin, a former Union minister, had wrested the constituency from the saffron party leader in 2014, surmounting the Modi wave.

The RJD is also locked in straight battles with JD(U) in Madhepura and Supaul.

In Madhepura, from where RJD chief Lalu Prasad had himself won twice, JD(U) MP Dinesh Chandra Yadav's bid to hold on to the seat is being challenged by Kumar Chandradeep, who teaches English at a college in Patna, but also happens to be the son of late Ramendra Kumar Yadav, who had been a member of both Houses in Parliament.

In adjoining Supaul, the RJD has counterintuitively fielded Chandrahas Choupal, its MLA from one of the two reserved assembly segments falling in the Lok Sabha constituency.

Jhanjharpur has gone to the Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) headed by former state minister Mukesh Sahni, who belatedly joined the Mahagathbandhan and got three seats from the RJD's quota of 26, in a state where the total number is 40.

Khagaria is one seat where the contest is, primarily, between two debutants. The sitting MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, who won the seat twice on the trot for Lok Janshakti Party of late Ram Vilas Paswan, has been denied a ticket by the latter's son Chirag.

Chirag, whose party is now known as LJP (Ram Vilas), has fielded a confidant Rajesh Verma, prompting Kaiser to join RJD. Kaiser's son Yusuf Salahuddin is the RJD MLA from Simri Bakhtiyarpur, which falls under Khagaria.

The sympathy in favour of Kaiser, who is also a former state Congress president, could boost the prospects of ally CPI(M) candidate Sanjay Kumar Kushwaha in this seat.