MP elections: "We will form government comfortably," says BJP's Akash Vijayvargiya

Indore (Madhya Pradesh) [India], November 17 (ANI): As voting for Madhya Pradesh's 230 assembly seats began on Friday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and son of Kailash Vijayvargiya, Akash Vijayvargiya, said: "We will form the government comfortably and run it efficiently".
Meanwhile, State Congress president and party's candidate from Chhindwara, Kamal Nath on Friday expressed his positive outlook regarding the Congress Party's performance in the assembly elections.
"I have faith in the entire state that they will side with the truth. I trust the public and the voters. I am not Shivraj Singh, that I will say that we will win these many or that many seats. The public will decide the number of seats...," he said.
Further, the congress leader said, "BJP has police, money and administration. They will have it for a few more hours now. Yesterday, I received several phone calls, someone sent me a video that shows that liquor and money were being distributed," he said.
Voting for Madhya Pradesh's assembly seats began at 7 a.m. today. The voters can cast their ballots until 6 p.m., except in the Baihar, Lanji, and Parswara assembly seats of Balaghat district and some booths in Mandla and Dindori districts, where voting will be held until 3 p.m.
The BJP is seeking to retain power in the state where it has ruled for almost 18 of the past 20 years and Congress is keen to oust the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The webcasting facility has been made available at about 42,000 polling stations. Nearly 700 companies of the central forces and two lakh police personnel of the state have been deployed for security during the poll.
The election will decide the electoral fate of over 2,500 candidates.
Nearly 5.59 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. It includes 2.87 crore male and 2.71 crore female voters.
There are over 5,000 booths run by women and 183 polling stations run by the disabled, officials said.
The polls, coming nearly six months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, are crucial for both the BJP and Congress for various reasons. The counting of votes for the five states, including Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram, will be done on December 3.
Polling for the second phase in Chhattisgarh began at 8 pm and will continue till 3 pm while voting in the nine polling stations of Bindranavagarh Assembly constituency will be held from 7 am to 3 pm.
For Chhattisgarh, over 18,800 polling stations have been set up for the second phase of polling. A total of 958 candidates are in the fray across the 70 seats.
While polling is being held in a single phase in Madhya Pradesh, voting for the first phase in Chhattisgarh for 20 seats was held on November 7. (ANI)