10.87 pc polling till 9 am in PM's constituency

The constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi recorded 10.87 per cent polling till 9 am. In this constituency, 18.54 lakh electorates will cast their votes in 1,819 polling booths, of which 273 are categorised as 'critical'.

The local administration has set up 145 model booths and one pink booth which will be operated only by women. Authorities have appealed to people to come out in large numbers to cast votes in Varanasi, which had reported 58.35 per cent polling in 2014.

All five assembly segments in this constituency are-- Rohaniya, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Varanasi Cantonment and Sevapuri. Modi's main challengers are Congress's Ajay Rai and SP-BSP candidate Shalini Yadav.

In 2014, Modi had defeated Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal by a margin of 3.37 lakh. Last time, Modi had got 56.37 per cent votes out of the total polled and there was a swing of 25.85 votes in his favour from 2009 when Murli Manohar Joshi had got 30.5 per cent votes for the BJP.

In 2009, the SP and the BSP contested separately, their combined vote share was 46.6 per cent which was more that of the BJP.