Kolkata, April 10 (IANS) Over half of the electorate voted Thursday in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in peaceful polling for the lone Lok Sabha seat, an official said.
“We have recorded 55.01 percent voting till 3 p.m.,” an official of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Chief Electoral Office told IANS over phone from Port Blair, adding that voting was going on even after 6 p.m. at some of the polling stations.
The official said latest updates on polling figures would be available only much later in the day as reports slowly filtered in from the sprawling island chain.
There are a total of 257,856 voters in the union territory. Polling started in 386 polling booths at 7 a.m. in this picturesque archipelago of 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal.
There are 15 candidates in the fray. The main contenders are incumbent MP Bishnu Pada Ray of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Kuldip Rai Sharma of the Congress and Sanjay Meshak of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Interestingly, 12.75 percent of the electorate is in the 18-25 age-bracket.
In the 2009 election, the BJP garnered 44.21 percent of the votes and the Congress 42.86 percent.
