Mumbai, November 20 (IANS). Voting is taking place in 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra from 7 am. Taking part in this festival of democracy, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran exercised his franchise.
“Voting is a precious privilege that you have,” Chandrasekaran told IANS.
“I would encourage everyone to vote and exercise this right,” he said.
People are participating enthusiastically in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. 4,140 candidates are in the fray for 288 seats of Maharashtra Assembly.
Of the 1,00,186 polling stations, 42,604 are urban and 57,582 are rural.
The grand alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP is contesting against Mahavikas Aghadi of Congress, Shiv Sena UBT and NC (SP).
Let us tell you that about 9.70 crore voters will exercise their franchise, which includes 5.22 crore male and 4.69 crore female voters. Pune district is at the forefront in terms of maximum number of voters.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat were among the first to vote in the state assembly elections.
Pawar voted in Baramati along with his wife and expressed confidence in his victory. Bhagwat voted in Nagpur and urged citizens to vote responsibly.
Those who voted included BJP’s Ashish Shelar, former Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan and people from the Congress.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dr Kiran Kulkarni said, “Keeping in mind the apathy of voters in urban areas, especially Mumbai, Thane and Pune, the state election machinery launched various campaigns to increase the voting percentage.”
“A total of 1,181 polling stations have been set up in high-rise buildings/co-operative housing society complexes in the cities. Besides, 210 polling stations have been set up in slums. The total number of sub-polling stations is 241,” he said.
-IANS
MKS/KR
