MP and Chhattisgarh vote today in high-stakes battle

Over 72 million people across the heartland states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will vote for 230 assembly seats in the former and 70 seats in the latter on Friday, sealing the fate of 3,491 candidates in polls that will have significant national ramifications.

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This round of assembly elections began on November 7 with 20 seats in Chhattisgarh and all of Mizoram going to the polls. The electoral fight is largely between the Congress and the BJP in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

The voting will commence at 7 am on Friday in 64,523 polling booths across Madhya Pradesh. It will end in the Maoism-affected districts of Balaghat, Dindori and Mandla by 3 pm and everywhere else by 6 pm. The state's chief electoral officer, Anupam Rajan, will monitor voting at every booth sitting in his office in Bhopal, officials said.

Rajan said the election commission has arranged for a helicopter and an air ambulance at Gondia, adjacent to Balaghat. "More than 38,000 polling stations will be monitored through CCTV and web casting. In 464 polling stations located in black zones where there is zero internet and telecommunication connectivity, runners have been deployed. The runners will come to the connectivity zone every two hours to share the information related to voting," he said.