Rajasthan: 40 pc of votes for Rajya Sabha polls cast till 10.30 am

Jaipur, Jun 10 (PTI) Nearly 40 per cent of the votes for the Rajya Sabha elections have been cast by 10.30 am in Rajasthan.

The voting started at 9 am in the assembly building and will continue till 4 pm. Counting will start at 5 pm, an official spokesperson said.

The first vote was cast by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

"Approximately 40 per cent voting has been done," said government chief whip Mahesh Joshi.

Polling is being held for four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan.

The Congress has fielded Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Surjewala and Pramod Tiwari, a prominent Uttar Pradesh politician, while the BJP has chosen former minister Ghanshyam Tiwari, who earlier was a vocal critic of former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje.

The Congress and the BJP are set to comfortably win two and one seats, respectively.

Media baron Subhash Chandra has made the contest interesting by entering the fray as a BJP-backed independent candidate.

Rajasthan has a total of 200 MLAs, including 108 of the Congress and 71 of the BJP. PTI SDA NSD