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Lok Sabha Polls Begin

Peaceful voting on first day

Star report
India's marathon parliamentary elections - the world's biggest democratic exercise - began yesterday amid projections that opposition rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party would sweep back to power riding on popular anger against slow economic growth and a series of scams.
In the first phase of polling involving six Lok Sabha constituencies held yesterday, an estimated 72.5 per cent turnout of voters was recorded in five of the total of 13 seats in north-
eastern state of Assam and 84 percent in one of the two seats in adjacent Tripura.
The north-eastern areas voting first are in often neglected parts of the country wedged between Bangladesh, China and Burma, which has long been hit by separatist insurgencies.
According to Election Commission sources, the polling yesterday was peaceful, reports our New Delhi correspondent Pallab Bhattacharya.
Elaborate security arrangements have also been made to ensure free and fair polls in the west Tripura Parliamentary Constituency yesterday.
Indo-Bangladesh border has been sealed from Sunday and Section 144 has been invoked to check the entry of anti-social elements and militants from across the border, reports DNA India.
Among the 51 candidates in the fray in the first phase are Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's son Gourav Gogoi, Union Minister Paban Singh Ghatowar, Union Minister Ranee Narah, state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sarbananda Sonowal and sitting Asom Gana Parishad MP JosephToppo.
In the Left Front-ruled Tripura, the election will witness a multi-cornered contest among CPI(M), Congress, Trinamool Congress and the BJP.
There are 13 candidates in the fray
in West Tripura. Some of the prominent among them are CPI(M)'s Shankar Prasad Dutta, secretary of the state unit of CITU; Congress' Arunoday Saha, former vice-Chancellor of Tripura Central University; Sudhindra Dasgupta, BJP's state unit chief; and Chairman of the state unit of TMC and former minister Ratan Chakraborty.
Over the coming weeks more than half a billion people are expected to visit 930,000 polling stations, all set up within two miles of their homes, adds The Guardia.
The election to elect the 16th Lok Sabha from a total of543 seats will be held in nine phases.
The last poll day is May 12 and the counting ofvotes will take on May 16, well ahead of expiry of the five-year term of the current Lok Sabha on May 31.
Religious tensions, which had been missing in the campaign so far, came to the fore on Friday last when a confidante of BJP's prime ministerial candidate and hardliner Modi was accused of inciting sentiments.
BJP General Secretary Amit Shah faces arrest and an investigation by Election Commission after he had
told supporters to see the election as "revenge" against a "government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Hindus."
The BJP, which launched its manifesto yesterday, has promised to relaunch the faltering Indian economy. Debate among analysts in Delhi largely centres on the margin of the BJP victory, not on its likelihood.
Polls have showed support for Modi's rival, 43-year-old Rahul Gandhi, who is the face of the ruling Congress party, slipping. The centreleft Congress, which has ruled India for all but 13 years since it won independence from Britain in 1947, appears to be facing its worst ever defeat.
Modi had urged voters on Sunday to give him a majority in the 543-seat Lok Sabha even as pre-poll surveys repeatedly projected that BJP will fall short of majority mark of272.
Congress party, whose campaign has been spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, the 43-year-old scion of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, is fighting its toughest poll battle as Indian economy has averaged growth of 7.6 percent per year, a sharp slowdown since 2012.