Over 7.30 per cent polling recorded in 4 LS seats in Bihar till 9 am

    Patna/Gaya, Apr 19 (PTI) Over 7.3 per cent of the 75 lakh voters in four Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar have exercised their franchise till 9 am on Friday, officials said.
    The polling began at 7 am and will go on till 6 pm, a senior official at the state Chief Electoral Office (Bihar) said.
    Over 75 lakh voters will decide the fate of 38 candidates in these four seats.
    Over 9.30 per cent of voters have exercised their franchise in Gaya Lok Sabha constituency, 9.12 per cent in Jamui, 6.01 in Aurangabad and 6.15 per cent in Nawada in the first two hours of voting.
    Talking to reporters in Gaya, former Bihar chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi who is contesting from Gaya as an NDA nominee, said, "Voters are coming to cast their votes. Voters are following what our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has said 'pahle matdan, phir jalpan' (First vote, then have breakfast)".
    Tight security arrangements are in place at Nawada and Aurangabad, besides reserved seats of Gaya and Jamui, where a majority of nearly 5,000 polling booths have been marked as "sensitive", given these districts' long history of naxal violence.
    Of the four seats, Nawada has the highest number of 20.06 lakh voters, where altogether eight candidates are in the fray though the contest is primarily between Vivek Thakur, a BJP Rajya Sabha MP seeking entry into the Lok Sabha, and RJD's Shravan Kushwaha.
    Gaya has 18.18 voters, but the highest number of 14 candidates. Here, former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, an NDA ally, who is just a few months shy of turning 80, is making yet another bid to enter Parliament.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)