Anup Jalota casts his vote in Lok Sabha polls

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 20 : Renowned devotional singer Anup Jalota on Monday stepped out to fulfil his voting duty amid the Lok Sabha elections.

Jalota urged people to vote. "You all have to come out of your houses and cast your vote. You must know the value of your vote. It is very precious..."

Voting on Monday started at 7 am and will continue until 6 pm, with those in line by the closing time allowed to vote. As per the ECI, over 8.95 crore voters, including 4.69 crore males, 4.26 crore females, and 5409 third-gender electors, are eligible to decide the fate of 695 candidates in the fifth phase of voting.The fifth phase witnesses key contests in various constituencies.

Senior leaders in the fray in the fifth phase of polling include Rajnath Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Smriti Irani, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Piyush Goyal, Ujjwal Nikam, Chirag Paswan and Omar Abdullah.

Eight states/UTs are going for polls in phase 5 - Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Of the 49 Lok Sabha seats, 14 are in Uttar Pradesh, 13 in Maharashtra, 7 in West Bengal, 5 in Bihar, 3 in Jharkhand, 5 in Odisha, and one each in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

A total of 2,000 flying squads, 2105 static surveillance teams, 881 video surveillance teams, and 502 video viewing teams are keeping surveillance round the clock across the 94,732 polling stations.

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