11 percent voting in Jharkhand (Lead)

Ranchi, April 10 (IANS) Around 11 percent voting has taken place in the first three hours in Jharkhand's four Lok Sabha constituencies where polling is underway.

Voting began in Koderma, Lohardaga, Palamu and Chatra constituencies at 7 a.m. and will end at 4 p.m.

Koderma witnessed highest polling with 13.5 percent of the electorate voting, and Chatra around 8.5 percenttill 10 a.m.

"As many as 1,193 video cameras are recording the polling. Webcasting will be done at 271 booths and 1,189 still cameras have also been pressed into service," an election official told IANS.

A total of 5,647,736 voters will decide the fate of 62 candidates who are in the fray in the four constituecies.

Six helicopters have been pressed into service, of which two are to conduct air surveillance.

The votes are being cast at 7,058 booths, of which 2,134 are categorised as sensitive.

Maoist guerrillas have put up posters in remote villages of Lohardagga, Palamau, Gumla and other districts and have called for boycott of the polls.

Around 40,000 security personnel have been deployed.

In the first phase, the key candidates are former state police director-general V.D. Ram, who is fighting on a BJP ticket from Palamau. He is locked in a triangular fight with sitting MP, former Maoist leader and TMC candidate Kameshwar Baitha, and Manoj Bhuiya of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

From Koderma, Bharatiya Janata Party state president Rabindra Rai is fighting and he is too locked in a triangular fight, as is the Lohardagga seat which is seeing the contest between the BJP, Congress and the TMC.

The BJP has fielded sitting MP Sudarsan Bhagat, TMC has named its legislator Chamra Linda, and the Congress has pitted former Indian Police Service officer and former central Minister Rameshwar Oraon.

In 2009, the BJP won two of the four seats, while one went gone to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the fourth, of Chatra, was bagged by an Independent candidate.