Amid the on-going Gujarat Assembly elections, many senior citizens are stepping out to cast their vote.
A 100-year-old woman named Kamuben Lalabhai Patel on Thursday exercised her franchise in Umargam in the first phase of the polling that is underway in the state.
As per Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, Gujarat has 9.8 lakh senior citizen voters.
Reportedly, the polling is taking place in 89 constituencies spread across 19 districts of Kutch, Saurashtra and South Gujarat.
The fate of around 788 candidates, who are in the fray for the first phase, will be decided by a total of 2,39,76,670 voters who will cast their votes by 5 pm today.
1,24,33,362 of electorates casting their votes today are male, while the number of females are 1,1,5,42,811. Meawhile, 497 are from the third gender. In addition, over 4 lakh PWD voters are eligible to cast their votes.
Among the people eligible to vote, nearly 9.8 lakh are senior citizen voters (80+) and almost 10,000 are 100 and above.
According to the EC, there are 5,74,560 voters who are between 18 to 19 years of age while 4,945 voters are above 99 years of age. There are 163 NRI voters, of which 125 are men and 38 are women.
There are 14,382 voting centres, out of which 3,311 are in the urban areas and 11,071 in the rural areas.
Among prominent candidates are, Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel conesting from Ghatlodia, AAP Chief Ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi from Khambhaliya, former Congress leader and BJP candidate Hardik Patel from Viramgam, former Congress leader and BJP candidate Alpesh Thakor from Gandhinagar South.
Apart from that, AAP state president Gopal Italia is contesting from Katargam constituency, Gujarat Home Minister (State) Harsh Sanghavi from Majura, Rivaba Jadeja from Jamnagar North, former Gujarat minister Parshottam Solanki from Bhavnagar Rural, Kunwarji Bavaliya from Jasdan, Kantilal Amrutiya from Morbi and Jayesh Radadiya from Jetpur.
The votes will be counted on December 8 and the result will be declared on the same date as of the Himachal Pradesh assembly.
Ms Kalinga