16 per cent polling till 9 AM in Malapuram LS seat

Around 16 per cent votes were cast till 9 am today in the byelection to Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, officials said.

No untoward incident was reported so far while there were instances of malfunctioning of some electronic voting machines (EVMs) which were rectified, they said.

Sixteen per cent of the more than 13 lakh voters exercised their franchise till 9 am in the bypoll necessitated by the demise of former Union Minister and IUML leader E Ahamed.

Congress-led-UDF candidate P K Kunhalikutty of Indian Union Muslim League, CPI-M's M B Faisal of the ruling LDF and BJP nominee N Sreeprakash are the main contestants in fray.

Six independents are also trying their luck.

More than 1,100 polling stations have been set up in the constituency which has a total electorate of 13,12,693.

The high voltage campaign saw heated debates on beef versus development.

The UDF is making all out efforts to retain its stronghold while the ruling LDF is trying for an upset win.

Seeking to put the UDF camp on the backfoot, the LDF claimed some senior Congress MPs from Kerala were likely to crossover to the BJP bandwagon.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Ahamed had won the seat by a margin of 1,94,739 votes against CPI(M)'s P K Sainaba.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)