Shimla, Nov 12 (IANS): Ninety-year-old Nazrim Mani and his 87-year-old wife on Saturday cast their votes at a polling booth in a school that was opened in 1890 in Kalpa village in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, election officials said.

Government Primary School in Kalpa, some 275 km from the state capital in the Kinnaur Assembly constituency, was the first school in the district.

He flashed his wrinkled inked finger after voting.

After casting the vote, Mani appealed to the voters in the state to participate in this festival of democracy with full enthusiasm.

Over 50 lakh voters in the state will exercise their franchise in the single-phase poll that began at 8 a.m. and will continue till 5 p.m.

Mani belonged to native place of Shyam Saran Negi, 106, the first voter of Independent India, who passed on November 5, three days after casting his vote by ballot due to ill health. That was his 34th vote for the 14th Vidhan Sabha elections.

As per official record, Negi had also participated in the 1951-52 general elections, the country's first.

A staunch believer in democracy, the centenarian had never failed to cast his vote in any election, be it Lok Sabha, Assembly or panchayat.

Out of 412 candidates in the fray in Assembly election, 24 are women and 388 men.

A total of 55,92,828 voters will elect their representatives. Of them, 193,106 are first-time voters in the age of 18-19 years.

There are 121,409 voters above 80 years, while 56,501 others with disabilities.

The main contest is between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.