Today in Politics: PM Modi to address rallies in 3 states, Amit Shah to file nomination from Gandhinagar

Polling for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections is underway on Friday in which more than 1,600 candidates, including eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and an ex-governor will test their electoral fate.

As many as 102 parliamentary constituencies across 21 states and union territories will go to polls, which is also the largest of the seven phases of the elections.

Moreover, voting will also be held for 92 Assembly seats in the elections in Arunachal Pradesh (32) and Sikkim (60).

Voting began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm, though the closure of poll timings differs in some seats.

The Election Commission has deployed over 18 lakh polling personnel across 1.87 lakh polling stations where over 16.63 crore voters will exercise their franchise.

Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.

Webcasting will be done in more than 50 per cent of the polling stations along with deployment of micro observers in all polling stations. Additionally, 361 observers — 127 general, 67 police and 167 expenditure observers — have already reached their constituencies days before the polls. They will serve as the eyes and ears of the Commission. Special observers have also been deployed in certain states.

Aiming to enhance voter turnout, ahead of the polling, the poll panel had also organised a conference on low voter turnout with focus on parliamentary constituencies with a history of low poll participation in previous elections.

Amongst the prominent leaders trying their electoral luck in phase one are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh (West), Arjun