The first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019 has kicked off on Thursday morning with 91 constituencies across 18 states and two union territories going to polls. As many as 175 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, 32 in Sikkim and 28 in Odisha are also going to polls simultaneously.
There is a total of 543 Lok Sabha seats in all, and polling for all the seats will be held in seven phases — April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19. Counting will be done on May 23.
All Lok Sabha constituencies of Andhra Pradesh (25), Telangana (17), Uttarakhand (5), Meghalaya (2) and Arunachal Pradesh (2), besides the lone seats of Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, and Lakshadweep are going to polls in the first phase. Besides, voting is under way for eight seats in Uttar Pradesh, seven in Maharashtra, four in Bihar, five in Assam, four in Odisha, two each in Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal and one seat in Chhattisgarh.
Among the seven phases to he held, the first phase has the third biggest number of Lok Sabha seats going to polls.