New Delhi: On Friday, Political parties continued their rallies across the country. PM Modi will address rallies in Maharashtra, Karnataka's Gangavathi and Kerala's Kozhikode while Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will campaign in Tamil Nadu's Theni. DMK president M K Stalin is also expected to join Rahul in the Theni rally.

Here it is to be noted that polling for the first phase of the high-pitched Lok Sabha election concluded with West Bengal recording a voter turnout of 81 per cent and Bihar 50 per cent. The Election Commission this time, however, did not share the overall polling percentage. India now awaits for the second phase polling scheduled to take place on April 18. Votes for all 543 seats would be counted on May 23 after the end of the seven-phase polling on May 19. An estimated 1.5 crore young voters in the age group of 18-19 years would vote for the first time across the seven phases.

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However it is worth mention here that voting across 91 Lok Sabha seats spread over 20 states and Union Territories in the first phase of the seven-phase elections was largely peaceful, barring a few stray incidents, said the Election Commission on Thursday. The highest voting percentage was recorded in Tripura (81.8 per cent) followed by West Bengal (81 per cent). Bihar recorded lowest voting percentage with 50 per cent voters turning out followed by 56 per cent voting in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The officials said that 70.67 per cent voting was recorded in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 66 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, 60 per cent in Telangana, 57.85 per cent in Uttarakhand, 58 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir, 69 per cent in Sikkim, 60 per cent in Mizoram, 78 per cent in Nagaland, 78.2 per cent in Manipur and 68 per cent in Assam. Uttar Pradesh recorded 63.69 per cent while in Lakshdweep, 66 per cent voteers exercised their franchise and Meghalaya recorded 67.16 polling.

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