Polling underway in Delhi; Dikshit, Gambhir, Vardhan among early voters

Team Udayavani, May 12, 2019, 10:07 AM IST

New Delhi: Voters queued up outside polling booths on Sunday morning in all seven Lok Sabha constituencies of the national capital where former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir are among those in the fray.

Voting began at 7 am and among the early voters were Dikshit, party’s New Delhi candidate Ajay Maken, Union minister Vardhan, BJP’s East Delhi candidate Gambhir, and BJP National General Secretary (Organisation) Ram Lal.

Mudit Agarwal, son of Congress’ Chandni Chowk candidate JP Agarwal alleged malfunctioning of EVMs at a few booths in Matiamahal and Ballimaran Assembly segments.

Tilak Nagar AAP MLA Jarnail Singh also alleged in a tweet that there was malfunctioning of EVMs at a booth.

“Dear @ECISVEEP Evm of polling booth no 27 AC 29 Delhi west is not working since morning, Do the needful asap,” he wrote on the micro-blogging site.

Over 1.43 crore people in Delhi are eligible to vote in this election which will decide the fate of 164 candidates, of which 18 are women. There are 43 independent candidates.

While 2,54,723 voters are in the age group of 18 and 19, there are 40,532 electorate with disability who would be provided pick up and drop facility.

“India’s prestige in the world, in whose hands is the country safe and who can bring rapid development — these are issues weighing on voters minds. And, they will vote on these issues only,” Ram Lal claimed.

Interacting with a reporter after casting his vote, he said, a “strong and stable government is needed, people also feel”.

Asked if the BJP will be back with a full majority, he said, “BJP (organisation) is based on team.. It will be a strong situation.”

In 2014, the voter turnout in Delhi was 65.07 per cent — 66 per cent for male and 63.93 per cent for female voters.

A total of 13,819 polling stations have been set up at 2,700 locations in Delhi, with one model polling station in each of the 70 assembly segments.

As many as 523 polling locations have been identified as critical and 60,000 personnel, including those of the Delhi Police, Home Guards and paramilitary, will be on their toes to ensure there is no untoward incident.