Violence erupted at two polling booths—147 and 148—of the Dimani Assembly constituency at Mirghan in the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh, with two groups resorting to stone-pelting, police said. One person was injured in the stone pelting, the police informed, adding that the situation was now under control and adequate security deployment had been made at the spot in the wake of the incident.
Voting for Madhya Pradesh’s 230 assembly seats began at 7 am on Friday. The voters can cast their ballots until 6 pm, barring the Baihar, Lanji, and Parswara assembly seats of Balaghat district and some booths in Mandla and Dindori districts, where voting will be held until 3 pm. The BJP is seeking to retain power in the state where it has ruled for almost 18 of the past 20 years and Congress is keen to oust the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The webcasting facility has been made available at about 42,000 polling stations. Nearly 700 companies of the central forces and two lakh police personnel of the state have been deployed for security during the poll. The election will decide the electoral fate of over 2,500 candidates.
Nearly 5.59 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. It includes 2.87 crore male and 2.71 crore female voters. There are over 5,000 booths run by women and 183 polling stations run by the disabled, officials said. The counting of votes for the five states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram will be done on December 3.
