6.03% voting in Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll till 9 am

Nanded: Altogether 6.03 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll till 9 am on Wednesday, election officials said.

The voting began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm.

There is a direct fight between Ravindra Chavan of Congress and BJP’s Santukrao Hambarde.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting Congress MP Vasant Chavan on August 26. Ravindra Chavan is his son.

Pratap Patil Chikhalikar, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha poll for Nanded seat as a BJP candidate, had defeated Ashok Chavan who was then with the Congress. Chikhalikar lost the 2024 Lok Sabha poll from Nanded to Vasant Chavan by a margin of over 59,000 votes.

While Ashok Chavan joined the BJP in February this year, Chikhalikar is now with the NCP led by Ajit Pawar and is contesting the assembly poll from Loha in Nanded, which he has represented twice as an MLA.