GUWAHATI: Voting for the second phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections has commenced across 88 parliamentary constituencies including five seats in Assam at 7 am on Friday.
A total of 1,210 candidates will be vying to get elected to the parliament during the phase 2 of polling.
No unusual or unwanted incidents have so far been reported during the early stages of the polling across the 9,133 polling stations that have been set up in the five constituencies that are going to the polls in Assam, namely the Darrang-Udalguri, Diphu (ST), Karimganj, Silchar (SC), and Nagaon.
The democratic process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha kicked off at 7 am and is expected to conclude by 5 pm across 13 states and union territories in phase 2.
Notably, as many as 61 candidates are in the fray across the five Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam where voting is currently underway.
At 24, the Karimganj parliamentary constituency has the highest number of candidates contesting for this seat while Diphu has the least number of candidates at 5.
Meanwhile, down south, prominent leaders such as the likes of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy will also battle it out in the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections held in Kerala and Karnataka.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will look to retain the Wayanad seat in Kerala while former Union Minister and Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor, the sitting MP of Thiruvananthapuram, will be hoping to defend his turf.
As all the 20 parliamentary constituencies of Kerala will go to the polls today, the second phase of the electoral process is of utmost significance for the south Indian state.
At the same time, Karnataka which has 28 parliamentary seats, is also in the spotlight during the second phase as 14 of its constituencies, including key regions like Bengaluru and Mysore. are exercising their democratic right today.
In addition to it, the bypoll in the Surpur (Shorapur) constituency within Yadgir district is also underway.
Elsewhere, the electorate is also casting their votes in the states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, where voting is going on.
While 15 assembly constituencies in Outer Manipur parliamentary constituencies voted in the first phase on April 19, 13 assembly constituencies will vote on Friday in the second phase. There are 4 contesting candidates from Outer Manipur PC.
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