Madhya Pradesh goes to polls Thursday

Bhopal, April 8 (IANS) As many as 118 candidates are in the fray in nine Lok Sabha constituencies in Madhya Pradesh where over 11 million voters are expected to head to polling booths Thursday.

Balloting for the 29 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh will be held in three phases - April 10, 17 and 24.

The nine constituencies that go to polls April 10 are Chhindwara, Satna, Rewa, Balaghat, Sidhi, Shahdol, Mandla, Jabalpur, and Hoshangabad.

In Chhindwara, Congress leader and union Minister Kamal Nath is pitted against Bharatiya Janata Party's Choudhary Chandrabhan Singh. Nath is also the incumbent MP from Chhindwara.

BJP leader Rakesh Singh is hoping to get re-elected from Jabalpur seat. Singh is up against Congress candidate and former state additional solicitor-general Vivek Tankha.

The polling will be held at 16,592 polling stations where 20,204 Electronic Voting Machines will be used.

As many as 132,736 poll officials will be on duty.

The Maoists affected constituency of Balaghat is on high alert and poll officials will also carry out aerial monitoring.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, out of these nine seats, the BJP had won on six seats and the Congress had won three seats.