Polling begins across seven Indian states
07/05/2014| IslamWeb
Voters are queuing up at polling stations in seven states to cast their ballots in the eighth phase of voting in India's parliamentary elections.
There are 64 Lok Sabha seats at stake across the following states: Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Already elections have been completed in 438 of the 543 constituencies. On Monday, 41 seats will go to polls in the last round.
Faced with complaints of large-scale rigging in some places, the Election Commission on Tuesday said that it has increased videography of polling stations to ensure free and fair poll.
The fate of 1,737 candidates, including Rahul Gandhi (Amethi), his cousin Varun (Sultanpur), Union minister Beni Prasad Verma (Gonda), cricketer-turned-politician Md Kaif (Phulpur-all in UP), Ram Vilas Paswan (Hajipur), Rabri Devi and Rajiv Pratap Rudy (Saran-all in Bihar) is in the hands of 18.47 crore voters who are eligible to cast their franchise.
Meanwhile, the villagers in eastern West Bengal's so-called red corridor on Tuesday announced poll boycott due to development issues.
In the Maoist-hit eastern Purulia constituency, more than 200 Muslim voters of Islamdi, Narayanpur and Joypur villages called for vote boycott over lack of developmental work such as electricity supply in the interior pockets, Reuters news agency reports.
The villagers also complained that students face lot of problems as they are unable to study at night due to no electricity.
Absence of electricity has become a big issue for the villagers this election season as they seemed hell-bent on boycotting polls on Wednesday.
The three West Bengal districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia will be going for polls May 7 for the parliamentary election.
PHOTO CAPTION
Indian election workers examine an Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) received at a temporary election office on the eve of the Lok Sabha - lower house - elections in Leh on May 6, 2014.
Aljazeera