The polling for the 70-member Delhi Assembly got underway on Saturday morning at 8 am. The voting will continue till 6 pm in the evening.
After the elections ends at 6 pm, all eyes will be on the exit polls. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed the media to not release exit polls before 6:30 pm. So, the exit polls will be announced only after 6:30 pm on February 8.
Earlier, The Election Commission of India had prohibited publishing or publicising the result of exit poll by means of the print or electronic media or in any other manner between the period between 8.00 am and 6.30 pm on 8th February.
The national capital is witnessing a triangular contest among the ruling AAP, which won a landslide majority in the 2015 Assembly elections, the BJP and the Congress. In the last poll, the AAP had won 67 seats, the BJP 3, while the Congress couldn’t even manage open its account.
Over 1.47 crore people are eligible to exercise their franchise in the polls that will decide the fate of 672 candidates. 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.
Security forces have 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.
Prominent candidates in the fray include Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, Atishi and Raghav Chadha of the AAP; four former mayors — Azad Singh, Yogender Chandolia, Ravinder Gupta and Khushi Ram — of the BJP; and Shivani Chopra, daughter of Delhi Congress president Subhash Chopra.
(With input from Agencies)
