Ozi Indian
Bhopal, November 17
Polling began on Friday morning for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, where 2,533 candidates, including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his predecessor Kamal Nath, are in the fray for 230 assembly seats, in a largely straight contest between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.
Polling is being held from 7 am to 6 pm in all the assembly segments except in Baihar, Lanjhi and Paraswada seats in Balaghat district, 55 booths in Mandla district’s Bichhiya and Mandla seats and 40 polling stations of Dindori district, all Naxalite affected, where voting time is 7 am to 3 pm, an official said.
The single-phase voting covering all the 230 assembly seats — 47 of them reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 35 for Scheduled Castes — has more than 5.6 crore registered electors, the official said.
