The first phase of elections on Thursday is being held in many States across the country. In Andhra Pradesh, simultaneous polls for 25 Lok Sabha and 175 Assembly seats are being held from day one, with current Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu going head-to-head with YSR Congress Party chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Neighbouring Telangana had unlinked the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, with the latter being held in November-December last year. Telangana has 17 Lok Sabha seats with K. Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, contesting from Nizamabad against Madhu Yaskhi of the Congress, and sitting MP from Hyderabad and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi contesting the same seat.
One out of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh will see voting on Thursday, where on Wednesday BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi and four security personnel were killed in a Maoist attack.
Assam will see five seats going to the polls with Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi in the fray from Kaliabor. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are three States which will see polling in each of the seven phases.
In Bihar, four seats go to polls on Thursday, with Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party contesting from Jamui, and Gaya (reserved) being contested by Hindustani Awaam Morcha chief and former Chief Minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi.
In Uttar Pradesh, eight seats go to polls, with Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh in the fray from Muzzaffarnagar, facing off against former Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan, with his son Jayant Chaudhary contesting in Baghpat facing current MP and Union Minister Satyapal Singh. Union Ministers, General (retd) V.K. Singh and Dr. Mahesh Sharma are also contesting from Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida). Only two of the 42 West Bengal seats, Cooch Behar and Alipurduar, are going to the polls on Thursday.
