Polling under way in Tamil Nadu, Kerala

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Voters lined up outside polling booths across Tamil Nadu and Keral on  Wednesday as elections to choose a new 234-member assembly began.

Voting is under way across Kerala to elect a 140-member assembly and 234-member assembly across Tamil Nadu.

In Tamil Nadu, about 47 million people are eligible to exercise their franchise. A total of 2,748 candidates, including 141 women, are in the fray to elect the 14th Tamil Nadu assembly.

The main battle is between the ruling DMK-led coalition and the AIADMK-led alliance.

The electorate would be deciding whether incumbent Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi would be given the chance to become the state head for a record sixth time and also enter the precincts of the assembly as its member for a record 12th time.

As many as 9,500 polling booths will have web cameras to relay live the polling process to the central office here and in around 5,000 booths the polling process is being videographed.

Praveen Kumar said the voting percentage during the 2006 assembly elections was 70 per cent; during the Lok Sabha polls in 2009 it was 73 per cent.

In Kerala, moderate to lengthy queues were seen in almost all the polling booths and 4.5 per cent of the state's voters had cast their votes at the end of the first hour of polling, according to election officials.

Palakkad district witnessed around seven per cent voting while Kollam district registered only around 3.4 per cent.

About 22 million people are eligible to vote and there are 971 candidates in the fray.

The main contest is between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

There are 20,758 polling booths in the state and around 3,703 booths have been identified as sensitive ones.