Bhopal, Apr 19 (IANS): Voting for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in six constituencies of Madhya Pradesh began at the scheduled time of 7 a.m. on Friday.
The six constituencies are -- Chhindwara, Jabalpur, Mandla, Sidhi, Shahdol and Balaghat.
Two seats -- Mandla and Shahdol -- are reserved for the Scheduled Tribe (ST). Balaghat is also a Maoist-hit constituency in the state.
Though the main contest will be between the BJP and Congress, however, there are 88 candidates in the fray, of them seven are women.
A total of 1,13,09,636 voters in the six Lok Sabha constituencies will vote to elect new members.
As many as 2,651 of the 13,588 polling booths have been tagged critical and most of them are in Balaghat and Mandla.