About five mn people vote in Madhya Pradesh

About five million people voted in nine Lok Sabha constituencies in Madhya Pradesh Thursday in largely peaceful polling, an official said. An Election Commission official said the state recorded a voter turnout of 46.55 percent by 4.30 p.m.

The nine parliamentary seats have an electorate of 11 million. Chhindwara constituency saw a voter turnout of 56.84 percent and Shahdol too saw a healthy turnout. However, in Sidhi, only 37.86 percent voters turned up to cast their vote. Reports reaching here said that as many as 18 EVMs malfunctioned and five villages boycotted the election over different issues.

A total of 118 candidates are in the fray in the nine constituencies -- Chhindwara, Satna, Rewa, Balaghat, Sidhi, Shahdol, Mandla, Jabalpur, and Hoshangabad. Polling for the rest of the constituencies will be held over the next two phases April 17 and 24. The state has a total of 29 Lok Sabha seats.

In Chhindwara, Congress leader and union minister Kamal Nath is pitted against Bharatiya Janata Party's Choudhary Chandrabhan Singh. Voting took place at 16,592 polling stations where as many as 132,736 poll officials are on duty.