Polling Begins: Haryana's 10 Lok Sabha Seats & Karnal Assembly By-election!

Polling is currently underway for Haryana's 10 Lok Sabha seats, along with the Karnal Assembly by-election.

Polling is underway in 10 Parliamentary seats in Haryana during the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 on Saturday.

Polling began on Saturday morning for the 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in Haryana and the by-election to the Karnal Assembly seat.

More than two crore voters are eligible to cast their votes to determine the fate of 223 candidates, including former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, two Union Ministers, and Congress stalwart Kumari Selja, who are contesting for the 10 Lok Sabha seats.

Voting commenced at 7 am amid tight security arrangements and will continue until 6 pm, officials said.

Khattar and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini were among the first to cast their votes at their respective booths.

For the Lok Sabha seats, there are 207 male and 16 female candidates.

In 2019, the ruling BJP had won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Polling also began for the by-election to the Karnal Assembly seat, where Saini is contesting.

For the Lok Sabha seats, Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar, along with Congress heavyweights Kumari Selja and Deepender Singh Hooda, are among the contestants.

There are nine candidates vying for the Karnal Assembly seat. The bypoll was necessitated after Khattar's resignation as MLA.

The state has 2,00,76,768 registered voters, including 94,23,956 women and 467 transgender voters, according to Haryana's Chief Electoral Officer Anurag Agarwal.

Chief Minister Saini, who is also the state BJP chief and outgoing MP from Kurukshetra, took office as chief minister on March 12, replacing Khattar. While the chief minister is contesting the Karnal assembly by-poll, Khattar is the BJP candidate for the Karnal parliamentary seat.

Among other candidates, Khattar is facing Haryana Youth Congress president Divyanshu Budhiraja, while Saini faces the Congress' Tarlochan Singh.

Haryana is witnessing a direct contest between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress on most seats. However, seats like Hisar are seeing a multi-cornered contest.

In Hisar, Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala, an Independent MLA who joined the BJP ahead of the polls, is competing against two members of the Chautala clan -- the JJP's Naina Chautala and the INLD's Sunaina Chautala. Additionally, former Congress MP Jai Prakash is also contesting from the seat.

The Congress' ally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is contesting from Kurukshetra, where its state unit chief Sushil Gupta is facing off against the BJP's Naveen Jindal and the Indian National Lok Dal's Abhay Singh Chautala in a triangular battle.

Union Ministers Inderjit Singh and Gurjar are seeking re-election from the Gurugram and Faridabad parliamentary seats, respectively. In Gurugram, the Congress has fielded its senior leader Raj Babbar.

The Congress' Selja and Deepender Hooda are contesting from Sirsa and Rohtak, respectively, where they are up against the BJP's Ashok Tanwar and Arvind Sharma.

The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have also fielded their candidates. The JJP has 10 candidates, the BSP has nine, and the INLD has seven candidates contesting the Lok Sabha polls.

Chief Electoral Officer Agarwal earlier stated that 20,031 polling stations have been set up in the state, including 19,812 permanent and 219 auxiliary polling stations.

Ninety-nine polling stations are being operated entirely by women staff. Additionally, 96 polling stations are being manned by youth employees, and 71 polling stations by employees with disabilities (PwD), he said.

As many as 5,470 polling stations have been set up in urban areas and 14,342 polling stations in rural areas, Agarwal mentioned.

He further stated that more than 96,000 officers and employees (excluding security forces) will be on duty at the polling stations. Besides this, flying squads and observers, along with micro-observers, will be present at different polling stations, the official added.

Foolproof security arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the election, stated Director General of Police Shatrujeet Kapur.