Polling underway for India seventh phase elections

Voting is being held in Gujarat, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Telangana besides in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

A total of 13.83 crore people are eligible to vote in this round.

In this phase the whole of Gujarat and Punjab are voting.

The fates of Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and BJP stalwarts like L K Advani (Gandhinagar) and Murli Manohar Joshi would also be decided in this round. BJP president Rajnath Singh is also a candidate in this round from from Lucknow.

Narendra Modi, who voted at Ranip under Gandhinagar constitutency, also took a selfie of his inked finger after casting his ballots and waved a lotus sign. His waving of lotus is seen as a violation of model code of conduct and opposition are complaining to the Election Commission.

"I seek forgiveness for not being able to devote enough time here. I could only give 18 hours this time here," he said after voting addressing media.

In Punjab's Amritsar, the battle is between BJP's Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley against former Congress chief minister Amrinder Singh.

This is Jaitley's maiden Lok Sabha contest.

This phase is also crucial for the new state of Telangana carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Voting is on for 17 Lok Sabha seats from the region along with 119 seats for what will be its first assembly. From June 2 Telangana will be a new state.

In West Bengal braving the heat people turned out since morning to vote in nine seats of the total 42 that are going to polls on Wednesday. Till 9 am, the turnout was more than 25 percent in Bengal.

This phase of polls in West Bengal was preceded by a slanging match between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP with both Mamata Banerjee and her colleagues targetting Modi after the latter accused Mamata of gaining from selling her painting for astronomical price to the now jailed chief of tainted ponzi company Saradha.

Image: Narendra Modi Twitter account