Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi voted at a polling booth at Nirman Bhawan
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi were among the early voters as polling began for the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.
Voting for seven constituencies of the national capital -- Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi, East Delhi, New Delhi, North West Delhi, West Delhi, and South Delhi -- began at 7 am.
After casting their votes, the two Congress leaders, accompanied by their security personnel, also clicked a selfie outside their polling booth at Nirman Bhawan.
Mr Gandhi also took to his official X account and shared a picture with his mother showing their inked fingers.
"Mother and I contributed to this great festival of democracy by casting our votes. All of you also come out of your homes in large numbers and vote for your rights and the future of your family," he posted in Hindi.
Rahul's sister and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also cast her vote in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections at a polling station in Delhi.
After casting her vote, she exuded confidence that the Opposition INDIA bloc "will win".
The early morning voters also included Union ministers S Jaishankar and Hardeep Singh Puri, Delhi Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Atishi, and outgoing East Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Gautam Gambhir.
President Droupadi Murmu also cast her vote in the New Delhi constituency.
The BJP's New Delhi nominee Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of late BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, was also among the early voters.
About 1.52 crore voters, including 82 lakh men, 69 lakh women, and 1,228 from the third gender category -- are eligible to cast their votes at more than 13,000 polling booths across the seven constituencies in Delhi.
The voting, which comes amid intense heat, will continue till 6 pm
Delhi Lok Sabha Elections
The BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in the 2014 and 2019 general elections and is aiming for a clean sweep for the third consecutive time.
The BJP candidates are Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi, the only sitting MP to be renominated by the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, Ms Swaraj from New Delhi, Harsh Deep Malhotra from East Delhi, Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi, Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk and Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi.
The opposition INDIA bloc partners AAP and the Congress are contesting the elections in the capital under a four-three seat-share formula. This is the first Lok Sabha election in Delhi in which Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP and the Congress have fielded joint candidates.
The AAP has fielded Kuldeep Kumar from the East Delhi constituency, Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi, Somnath Bharti from New Delhi, and Pahalwan from South Delhi.
The Congress has nominated JP Agarwal from the Chandni Chowk seat, Kanhaiya Kumar from North East Delhi, and Udit Raj from North West Delhi.
Lok Sabha Election Phase 6 Voting
Besides Delhi, voting is also taking place in 51 seats across seven states in the sixth and penultimate phase of the Lok Sabha election.
The polling is being held in eight parliamentary seats each in Bihar and Bengal, 10 in Haryana, four in Jharkhand, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, and the final seat in Jammu & Kashmir -- Anantnag-Rajouri, where polling was moved from the third to the sixth phase.
By the end of today, the election will be completed in 486 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.
