Banswara, where Modi raised pitch, among 13 seats in Rajasthan votes

Jaipur: Polling for 13 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats and one Assembly constituency in Rajasthan began on Friday morning.

Voting began at 7 am in Barmer-Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Jalore, Chittorgarh, Banswara, Kota-Bundi, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Udaipur, Rajsamand, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran, along with the Bagidora Assembly constituency where a bypoll is being held.

It will continue till 6 pm.

Around 2.8 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the second phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. This is the final phase of polling in Rajasthan. Voting for 12 seats in the desert state was held in the first phase on April 19.

The Bagidora Assembly seat in Banswara fell vacant after Congress MLA Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Malviya is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Banswara as the BJP candidate.

More than 1.72 lakh personnel have been deployed on election duty while 82,487 security personnel, including policemen, home guards, forest guards and Rajasthan Armed Constabulary jawans, have also been pressed into service to ensure free-and-fair polls.

Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said 175 companies of central police forces will also be there for security-related arrangements.

After a low voter turnout of 58.28 per cent in the first phase of the election on April 19, leaders focused on requesting people to vote in large numbers in the second phase. The voter turnout was 64.02 per cent in 2019.

The election campaign in the second phase heated up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hitting out at the Congress and calling it a party of "urban Naxals".

Addressing a rally in Banswara last week, Modi suggested that if the Congress comes to power, it would "redistribute" wealth among Muslims. He alleged that the opposition party plans to give the people's hard-earned money and valuables to "infiltrators" and "those who have more children".

At another rally in Tonk, Modi accused the Congress of attempting to reduce the reservation for Dalits, tribals and backwards and give it to Muslims against the spirit of the Constitution.