Chhattisgarh polls: Voting in first phase begins amid high security

The constituencies going to polls today are Khairagarh, Dongargarh, Rajnandgaon, Dongargaon, Khujji, Mohla-Manpur of Rajnandgaon district and Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, Kanker, Keshkal, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Jagdalpur, Chitrakot, Dantewada, Bijapur and Konta of Bastar division.  Women voters outnumber men for first phase of polling, as 14,78,659 female voters are there against 14,53,730 men.  


A total of 4,142 polling booths have been set up for this phase of which 1,517 are sensitive booths while 1,311 are hyper-sensitive stations. Out of the 18 seats, BJP had won 15 while Congress had three in the last election.  

The rest 72 constituencies, including Bilaspur and state-capital Raipur, are scheduled for polls on November 19.  A total of 562 companies (56,200 personnel) have been recently sent by the Centre for security related duty in addition to existing 40 battalions (40,000 men and women) of paramilitary forces who are engaged in anti-naxal operations and other security related duty in the state, official sources said.