Bangalore, April 23 (Inditop) Over 28,000 polling booths opened at 7 a.m. across 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka Thursday in the first of the two-phase elections for the 28 seats in the state.
About 20.6 million voters, including 10.3 million women, are eligible to vote to decide the fortunes of 271 candidates.
About 100,000 poll officials and 60,000 security personnel are on duty in 28,997 booths in the Bangalore South, Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Bangalore Rural, Chikkodi, Raichur (Scheduled Tribe), Belgaum, Bijapur (Scheduled Caste), Gulbarga (SC), Bidar, Koppal, Bellary (ST), Uttara Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumkur, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC) constituencies.
Ten percent of the polling booth are being treated as hyper-sensitive as there is a possibility of violence or disorder.
In this Karnataka capital and neighbouring areas, around 16,000 security personnel are on vigil at 5,905 polling booths in the Bangalore South, Central, North and parts of Bangalore Rural and Chikkaballapur constituencies.
More than 1,000 polling booths in these areas are considered hyper-sensitive, according Bangalore city police commissioner Shankar Bidari.
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