Over 25% voting in Bihar till noon

A quarter of the electorate voted in the first five hours of polling for seven Lok Sabha seats and one state assembly seat in Bihar Wednesday.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer R. Lakhshaman said 25.93 percent of the voters had cast their ballots till 12 noon.

"So far, polling has been peaceful with no report of violence," he said.

He said long queues of people, including women and young, mostly first time voters, were seen at polling booths since morning. The voters were particularly excited in rural areas.

"The voting percentage is likely to pick up in next two or three hours," Lakhshaman added.

Voting is on in Madhepura, Jhanjharpur, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Begusarai and Khagaria Lok Sabha seats and by-poll is being held for the Sahebpur Kamal assembly seat.

As many as 94 candidates are in the fray and prominent candidates include Sharad Yadav, Hukum Deo Narain Yadav, Ali Ashraf Fatmi, Kirti Azad and Pappu Yadav.

More than 11 million people are eligible to vote at 10,157 polling booths.

A total of 58,215 poll officials have been deployed.

This is the fourth round of polling in the state that sends 40 lawmakers to parliament.