Voting for 288 assembly seats is being held in Maharashtra where the ruling alliance of BJP-Shiv Sena is facing Congress-NCP.
Voters in a Maharashtra village found an innovative way to wade through muddy ground to reach the polling booth. Voting for the Maharashtra and Haryana state elections are being held along with bypolls to over 50 assembly and two Lok Sabha seats.
In Maharashtra, where rains had lashed several parts of the state ahead of the voting, the road leading to polling stations at several places had become muddy. In Pune district's Kambleshwar village where voting was being held at a school, the ground was muddy and it was difficult for the voters to reach the polling booth.
The administration found an innovative way and attached one tractor trolley after another to make a ramp. Now the voters did not even have to put their feet on the ground and could the reach the polling station safely without walking through muddy and slippery paths.
The Election Commission in a tweet said there was waterlogging around the polling booth due to continous rains for two days. The administration then added six trolleys to make a ramp for voters.
"This is a view of the Pune rural's Kambaleshwar village where it became difficult for the voters to reach polling booths due to waterlogging after two days of heavy rains. The administration built a ramp by adding six tractor trolleys and it became easy for voters to go to the polling booth to vote," the ECI said in a tweet.
Voting for 288 assembly seats is being held in Maharashtra where the ruling alliance of BJP-Shiv Sena is facing Congress-NCP.
The voter turnout in Maharashtra till 5 pm is 44.22%.
The BJP is contesting the state polls in an alliance - Mahayuti - with Shiv Sena and some other smaller allies. The BJP has fielded candidates on 150 seats, Sena is contesting 124 seats while 14 seats have gone to smaller allies including RPI-A.
The Congress has fielded 147 candidates and the ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 121.
Total voters in Maharashtra are 8,98,39,600 - 4,28,43,635 women and 4,68,75,750 men - who are eligible to cast their votes on October 21 to elect 288 new members of the new assembly. There are a total of 3237 candidates, including 235 women, in the fray.
The Election Commission has deployed 6.5 lakh polling staff for the election which will be held across 96,661 polling booths. A total of 1,35,021 VVPAT machines will be used in the election across 288 assembly constituency.
In 2014 elections which the BJP and Shiv Sena contested separately, the two parties won 122 and 63 seats, respectively. The Congress and the NCP - who fought the election together - won 42 and 41 seats, respectively.
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