A voter turnout of 29.90 per cent was recorded till 11 am on Tuesday in seven of the 11 Lok Sabha constituencies of Chhattisgarh in the third and last phase of elections in the state .
voter turnout of 29.90 per cent was recorded till 11 am
"Polling in the seven Lok Sabha constituencies started at 7 am. Till 9 am, 13.24 percent polling had been registered," the official said.
By 11 am 29.90 per cent turnout had been recorded.
Long queues of voters were seen at polling booths in some of the seats.
Chhattisgarh's Deputy Chief Minister Arun Sao was among the early voters at a polling booth in Bilaspur town.
The state's Chief Electoral Officer Reena Babasaheb Kangale voted at a Dharampura polling booth and Additional Chief Electoral Officer Nilesh Kshirsagar at the Amlidih polling booth in Raipur.
Security has been heightened with the deployment of 202 companies of central forces and more than 60,000 personnel of the police force and District Reserve Guard, an official earlier said.
Altogether 168 candidates, including 26 women, are in the fray in the third phase, the official said.
The main contest is between the BJP, which won 10 out of the total 11 seats in the three general elections after 2004, and the Congress.
In the 2019 polls, the BJP bagged nine seats and the Congress got two seats.
A total of 1,39,01,285 persons, including 69,33,121 men, 69,67,544 women and 620 members of the third gender, are eligible to exercise their franchise in the third phase.
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.
As many 15,701 polling booths have been set up in the seven constituencies and of them, 25 have been categorised as vulnerable and 1,072 as critical, the official said.
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