Voting for the assembly elections in Delhi is underway with people queuing up outside polling booths since early Saturday morning undeterred by the chilly weather.
IMAGE: President Ram Nath Kovind and first lady Savita Kovind cast their votes at Dr Rajendra Prasad Kendriya Vidyalaya, President’s Estate. Photograph: ANI
Over 1.47 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise in the polls that will decide the fate of 672 candidates.
Poll officials said 3.66 per cent votes were cast in the first hour of voting, which began at 8 am.
IMAGE: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal shows his inked finger after casting vote at Civil Line polling station. Photograph: Ravi Choudhary/PTI Photo
Former vice president Hamid Ansari and Bharatiya Janata Party national secretary Ram Lal were among those who queued up outside the Nirman Bhavan polling station in the first hour of voting.
Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal, who is eyeing to repeat his party’s 2015 assembly performance, voted at the Rajpura Transport Authority polling station in the Civil Lines area.
IMAGE: Former vice-president Hamid Ansari after casting vote at Nirman Bhawan polling station. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo
Kejriwal, who is contesting the polls from the New Delhi seat, was accompanied by his wife Sunita and son Pulkit.
Before leaving for voting, he sought his parents blessings.
President Ram Nath Kovind, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma and Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari have voted.
IMAGE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi arrives at polling booth number 81&82 at Aurangzeb Road to cast his vote. Photograph: ANI
Minutes before polling began, Kejriwal tweeted, ‘Please go to cast vote. A special appeal to all the women – As your shoulder the responsibility at home, likewise, the responsibility of the country and Delhi is on your shoulders.’
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who led a very aggressive campaign and covered 60 assembly seats, appealed to voters to ‘free’ the national capital from lies and votebank politics.
IMAGE: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh at Nirman Bhawan polling station. Photograph: ANI
‘By giving Delhi clean air, clean drinking water and every poor house, only the best capital of the world can make it a government with far-sighted thinking and strong intentions.
‘I appeal to the people of Delhi to vote to free Delhi from lies and vote bank politics,’ Shah tweeted.
BJP president J P Nadda also appealed to all the voters to vote in large numbers.
IMAGE: Kejriwal with his family after casting their votes. Photograph: ANI
‘Each vote of you is important for the unity and integrity of the country and holistic development of Delhi. Your vote only will be script the golden future of Delhi. ‘Pehle Matdan, Phir Jalpan’. Jai Hind,’ Nadda tweeted.
Polling began at 8 am and will end at 6 pm, an official said.
The minimum temperature in the city on Saturday settled at 7 degrees Celsius, three notches below the season’s normal.
IMAGE: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar poses for a photograph after casting his vote at the polling station set up at NDMC School of Science & Humanities Education at Tuglak Cresent in New Delhi on Saturday. Photograph: ANI
Shallow fog engulfed some parts of the national capital, leading to ‘very poor’ air quality, a MeT official said.
Security forces kept a tight watch across the 70 constituencies, with police and paramilitary personnel keeping an ‘extra vigil’ in sensitive areas like Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Nagar and Seelampuri.
IMAGE: Delhi Deputy CM and AAP candidate from Patparganj constituency Manish Sisodia with his wife Seema Sisodia after casting his vote at MCD school in Pandav Nagar. Photograph: ANI
There are over 81 lakh male voters, 66.80 lakh female voters, and 869 third-gender voters, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ranbir Singh has said.
Around 2.33 lakh voters are in the age group of 18-19, 2.04 lakh voters are senior citizens aged 80, while there are 11,608 service voters, according to officials.
IMAGE: Delhi Commission For Women chief Swati Maliwal shows her inked finger after casting her vote. Photograph: PTI Photo
There are 13,750 polling booths, besides one auxiliary booth, located at 2,689 locations across Delhi.
“As far as critical polling stations are concerned, there are 516 locations and 3,704 booths in that category,” Singh said.
IMAGE: A queue of voters at a polling booth in Shaheen Public School in Shaheen Bagh, Okhla. Photograph: ANI
Besides police security, polling stations falling in the ‘critical category’ have got paramilitary cover.
Activities at such stations are being monitored through webcasting, officials said.
All five polling stations in Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of massive protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, are under critical category.
IMAGE: BJP MP Parvesh Verma casts his vote at a polling station in Matiala assembly constituency. Photograph: ANI
The AAP is hoping to repeat its stellar performance of the last assembly polls when it won 67 of the 70 seats.
The BJP, which bagged all the seven seats in Delhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, is aiming to dislodge the AAP, while the Congress is seeking to better its performance than last time when it drew a blank in the assembly polls.
The AAP had got 54.3 per cent votes in the 2015 polls, while the BJP secured 32 per cent and the Congress bagged just 9.6 per cent.
Counting of votes will take place on Tuesday.
