Gujarat polls: Exercise franchise in record numbers, PM Modi tells first time voters

As the voting for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections began on Thursday Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon people especially firsttime voters to come out in large numbers to exercise their franchiseToday is the first phase of the Gujarat elections I call upon all those voting today particularly firsttime voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers PM Modi said in a tweetPolling for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly election began at 8 am on Thursday amid tight security arrangementsThe polling is taking place in 89 constituencies spread across 19 districts of Kutch Saurashtra and South GujaratA total of 23976670 voters who will cast their votes by 5 pm today will decide the fate of 788 candidates who are in the fray for the first phaseOut of the total number of electorates 12433362 are males 11542811 females and 497 are from the third gender Over 4 lakh PWD voters are eligible to cast their votesNearly 98 lakh senior citizen voters 80 and nearly 10000 voters who are 100 and above are eligible to voteAlso Read Gujarat elections 2022 PM Modi to hold 50 km long roadshow in AhmedabadAccording to the EC there are 574560 voters who are between 18 to 19 years of age while 4945 voters are above 99 years of age There are 163 NRI voters of which 125 are men and 38 are womenThere are 14382 voting centres out of which 3311 are in the urban areas and 11071 in the rural areasLive webcasting of 13065 polling booths in 19 districts will be done during the first phase of voting A statelevel monitoring room is functioning at Gandhinagar by the Chief Electoral Officer There will be continuous observation from 630 am till the completion of the voting process according to the ECAs per the instructions of the Election Commission the entire arrangement has been made In the first phase voting will be held at a total of 25430 polling stations Out of these 13065 polling stations will be webcast liveAmong prominent candidates Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel is contesting from Ghatlodia AAP Chief Ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi from Khambhaliya former Congress leader and BJP candidate Hardik Patel from Viramgam former Congress leader and now BJP candidate Alpesh Thakor from Gandhinagar SouthAAP state president Gopal Italia is contesting from Katargam constituency Gujarat Home Minister State Harsh Sanghavi from Majura Rivaba Jadeja from Jamnagar North former Gujarat minister Parshottam Solanki from Bhavnagar Rural Kunwarji Bavaliya from Jasdan Kantilal Amrutiya from Morbi and Jayesh Radadiya from JetpurFormer BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastav is contesting as an Independent from VaghodiaThe counting of votes will be done on December 8 Results of the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections will also be declared on the same dayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever