Around 22 per cent polling recorded till 11 am in Maharashtra

PUNE: Maharashtra registered 21.47 per cent voting till 11 am in 10 constituencies where a total of 179 candidates are in the fray for the second phase of

Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra

, election officials said.

A live webcast of polling will be held at 2,100 polling booths.

A senior poll official on Wednesday said around 85,46,000 voters are expected to exercise their franchise at 20,716 booths in these constituencies, spread in parts of Vidarbha and Marathwada regions.

Beed constituency has the highest number of contestants at 36, while 10 candidates are contesting from Latur. In Beed, the home constituency of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, his daughter Pritam is seeking another term and is facing Bajrang Sonawane of the NCP.

The ten parliamentary constituencies are Buldhana, Akola, Amravati in Vidarbha and Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani, Beed, Osmanabad, Latur in Marathwada and Solapur in south-western Maharashtra.

Prominent candidates who are in the fray - former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde of Congress, who are contesting from Nanded and Solapur seats, respectively. In the 2014 elections, the NDA won 8 out of these 10 seats, riding the Narendra Modi wave, whereas the Congress won the remaining two seats - Nanded and Hingoli.

Election officials stated that there are 12 candidates in Buldana, 11 in Akola, 24 in Amravati, 28 in Hingoli, 14 in Nanded, 17 in Parbhani, 14 in Osmanabad and 13 candidates in Solapur Lok Sabha constituency.

A total of 62,709 Electronic Voter Machines (37,850 ballot units and 24,859 control units) and around 26931 VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines are put in place for the second phase. Sakhi polling stations are aimed at encouraging more female voters to exercise their franchise.

Maharashtra, which sends second highest number of MPs to Lok Sabha (48) after Uttar Pradesh (80), is voting in four phases. A total of seven constituencies, all in the Vidarbha region in East Maharashtra, had voted in the first phase on April 11, recording a voter turnout of over 61 per cent. Polling will be held on April 23 and 29 for the remaining seats in the state for western Maharashtra and southern parts of the state.