MP: Over 5L first-time voters to exercise franchise in phase 3 of LS polls

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anupam Rajan on Monday said that more than five lakh first-time voters will exercise their franchise in the third phase of the Lok Sabha election for the nine Lok Sabha seats in the state.

“More than 5.25 lakh first-time voters (age group 18-19) will exercise their rights. There are around 1804 voters -- above 100 years -- who will also vote in the third phase,” Rajan said during a press conference.

A total of 127 candidates are in the fray for the third phase elections, the highest (22) in Bhopal and lowest (7) in the Bhind constituency.

There are more than 1.77 crore voters -- 92.68 lakh male and 84.83 lakh female -- and 491 third-gender voters and 1,66,431 Divyang (specially abled) voters in the state.

A total of 20, 456 polling booths have been set up in the nine Lok Sabha seats, which will cover as many as 18 districts of the state.

Of them, 5744 polling booths have been earmarked as critical and most of them are in three constituencies - Bhind, Morena and Gwalior.

As many as 2043 polling booths have been designated as 'pink booths' in the third phase, where the polling will be conducted by women and Divyang employees.

The nine Lok Sabha constituencies that will go to polls in the third phase on May 7 are Bhopal, Vidisha, Gwalior, Morena, Bhind, Sagar, Betul, Raigarh and Guna.