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Friday, May 08, 2009
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An array of VIPs at polling booths

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit were among those who turned up early to cast their votes in the Lok Sabha elections for the seven seats from Delhi on Thursday.

While the President cast her vote at a special booth inside the President’s Estate, Mr. Ansari, and Ms. Gandhi who was accompanied by Ms. Dikshit, voted at the Nirman Bhavan polling station in the New Delhi constituency.

Congress candidate from New Delhi Ajay Maken, who received the Congress president and the Delhi Chief Minister later, told mediapersons that he was confident of winning the seat and that the Congress would emerge victorious in the remaining six seats from Delhi.

Priyanka Gandhi and her husband Robert Vadra were among the first to arrive at the Vidyabhavan Mahavidyalaya booth on Lodhi Road. Talking to mediapersons, she hoped the Congress would improve its national tally. She urged voters to come out and vote for a party and a Prime Minister who had worked for the development of the country.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi exercised his franchise at a booth in Aurangzeb Lane.

The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, cast his vote at a booth in Duplex Lane near Sena Bhavan. The former Delhi Lieutenant-Governor, Vijay Kapoor, and Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, voted in the Aurangzeb Lane booth.

“People are upbeat”

IANS, PTI report:

People are voting for development and peace, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said after casting his vote at his ancestral home Bakhtiyarpur near Patna. “I am very happy to use my right to vote and appeal to the people to vote in large numbers,” JD(U) leader said. He said people were upbeat and that was a good sign.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said on Thursday that he had voted according to his “party’s decision” as there was no Left candidate in the New Delhi constituency where he cast his vote. Mr. Karat was speaking to journalists after voting at the Sanchar Bhawan in New Delhi. — PTI

(Photos by Sandeep Saxena, Rajeev Bhatt, Ranjeet Kumar, Rajasthan Patrika, Nissar Ahmad & V. Sudershan)

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