New Delhi:
Voting began on a moderate note in 86 seats across seven States and Union Territories for the fifth and final phase of Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday.
After four rounds of polling, it is still not clear whether the Congress-led UPA will get another term or the BJP-steered NDA will return to office after five years.
Over 10.78 crore voters have a say in electing 86 MPs to the 545-member lower house of Parliament in this phase.
The polling exercise began at 0700 hrs across 1.21 lakh booths.
The fifth phase saw polling action move to Tamil Nadu, where 39 seats are up for grabs, even as the battle still rages on in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most number of MPs (80) to Parliament, and Jammu and Kashmir are the only two states to see polling in all the five phases.
Among the key contenders in this round are Congress's P Chidambaram and Md Azharuddin, BJP's Maneka and Varun Gandhi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, DMK's T R Baalu, A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran and M K Azhagiri, MDMK's Vaiko, TC chief Mamata Banerjee and SP's Jayaprada.
Congress's Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sajjad Gani Lone of People's Conference, BJP's Vinod Khanna and Navjot Singh Sidhu are others who are prominent among the 1,432 candidates in the fray in this round.
Besides all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, elections would be held to four seats in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, five in Uttarakhand and the lone one seat each in both Chandigarh and Puducherry.
Polling has been completed to 457 Lok Sabha seats since the exercise began on April 16. Results will be out on May 16.
A party or a coalition needs 272 seats in the Lok Sabha to stake claim to form a government.
The Lok Sabha has 545 members, but elections are held to 543 seats as two members are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community.