Bhopal: The second phase of general elections in six constituencies of Madhya Pradesh began at its scheduled time of 7 a.m. on Friday.
The constituencies where voting is taking place are: Khajuraho, Tikamgarh, Damoh (all three in Bundelkhand region), Rewa, Satna (both in Vindhya region) and Hoshangabad.
According to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Office, there are 12,828 polling booths, 2,865 of them are tagged as ‘critical’. Of these, 1336 booths are being run exclusively by women.
There are a total of 80 candidates in the fray, including 75 men, four women and one is third gender. Interestingly the smallest constituency — Satna has the highest number of candidates (19) in the fray.
Madhya Pradesh BJP chief V.D. Sharma, who is contesting his second election from Khajuraho, will almost have a walkover as Congress has left this seat for the Samajwadi Party and SP’s candidate’s nomination paper was cancelled two weeks ago.
Another seat, Damoh in Bundelkhand region will see the contest between BJP’s Rahul Singh Lodhi and Congress’ Tarvar Singh Lodhi. Both are close aides of former Chief Minister Uma Bharti.
In the Tikamgarh seat, BJP veteran Virendra Khatik will take on Congress’ fresh candidate Pankaj Ahirwar.
In Rewa, the main contest will be between two-time sitting MP Janardan Mishra and Congress’ Neelam Mishra.
In Satna, four-time sitting BJP MP Ganesh Singh will take on Congress MLA Siddharth Kushwah. Singh lost the Assembly election to Kushwaha in November last year.
In the Hoshangabad seat, BJP’s Darshan Singh Chaudhary will take on Congress’ wealthy candidate Sanjay Sharma.
–IANS