Final round of voting begins on moderate note

Polling began this morning on a  moderate note in 86 constituencies in seven states and two Union Territories in the fifth and final phase of polling in the Lok Sabha elections, described often as the most vigorous democratic exercise in the world.

This round of voting will determine the electoral fate of such stalwarts as Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee, MDMK general secretary Vaiko and the Bhartiya Janata Party's Muktar Abbas Naqvi, Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka Gandhi.

Some of the other key contestants include Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin and his team-mate Navjyot Singh Sidhu, film stars Jayaprada and Vinod Khanna and DMK leaders T R Baalu and Dayanidhi Maran.

In all, 1432 candidates, including 93 women, are in the fray for this phase of polling that will involve a total electorate of about 107.8 million.

Counting of votes will be taken up on May 16 and results of all the 543 seats are expected to be out by that evening.

Voting is being held today in all 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu, four in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, all 39 in Tamil Nadu, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, five in Uttarakhand, one in Chandigarh and one in Puducherry.

Chennai South in Tamil Nadu has the largest number of contestants at 43 whle Faridkot has the most number of women candidates at five.

Among the national parties, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded candidates in 83 of the constituencies going to the polls today, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 53, Congress in 49, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in 14, the Communist Party of India (CPI) in seven, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in six and the Rashtriya Janata dal (RJD) in one,

State parties account for 192 candidates, unrecognised parties for 248 and independents for 779, official figures showed.

Polling began at 0700 hours and will end at 1700 hours in all constituencies. As many as 1,21,632 polling stations have been set up for this round.

The exercise to choose the 15th Lok Sabha began on April 16 with the first round of polling, followed by the second round on April 23, the third on April 30 and the fourth on May 7.

The Lok Sabha has 545 seats, including two members of the Anglo-Indian community who are nominated by the President.

The tenure of the present Lok Sabha will expire in the normal course on June 1 and a new House is required to be constituted before June 2, as per the constitutional provisions.

The total electorate in the country, after the latest round of revision of electoral rolls, is about 714 million, an increase of 43 million over the figure for the last Lok Sabha elections in April-May, 2004.

This is the first time that the entire country, except Assam, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir, is using Photo Electoral Rolls (covering 522 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies and 82 per cent of the voters).

NNN