Voting for India's general elections begins in Punjab

Voting for India's general elections in northern state of Punjab began Wednesday morning, officials said.

The voting is underway in all the 13 constituencies of the state and voters are making queues outside the polling stations to cast their votes. "The elections in whole of Punjab will take place in today's phase,"said a government spokesman."All the measures have been put in place to ensure free and fair polling."

Officials said there are 253 candidates in the fray across Punjab and more than 19.6 million people are expected to exercise their right to vote.

Officials have set up 22,022 polling booths across the state for eligible voters.

Punjab's chief electoral officer V K Singh told the media the polling parties comprise 114,798 civil staff and 47,355 security personnel. India's paramilitary forces have been deployed on 3,324 polling locations while 8,600 locations were being manned by Punjab police, reports said.

Wednesday marks the seventh phase of polling in India with Punjab among the seven states and two union territories going for polls.

Amritsar, the Sikh holy city, is witnessing a high-profile contest, with former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, a Congress Party candidate, pitted against Arun Jaitley, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) stalwart.

Analysts said the elections would be a turning point for Badal family's Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Badal's have entered into a pre poll alliance with BJP. The SAD-BJP alliance heads the state' s government since 2007.

The Punjab state sends 13 members as elected representatives to the 543-member lower house of Indian parliament known as Lok Sabha.

Last year, Congress Party won eight seats in the state and India's right-wing Hindu nationalist party BJP got only one. The remaining four went to a regional party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

A new player in the Punjab is India's newly launched anti- corruption party is Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) or common man's party. The party, too, has made inroads in the state and fielded candidates in all the constituencies.

According to analysts, AAP is likely to get good share of votes in Punjab.

In India's general elections, Congress Party is seeking to regain power under leadership of Rahul Gandhi -- the fourth generation scion of India's powerful Nehru-Gandhi clan. He is facing BJP nominee Narendra Modi, who wants to unseat the Congress party after two successive terms.