Chandigarh, April 10 (IANS) Enthusiastic voters began queuing up in the first hour itself in Chandigarh and parts of Haryana as voting began Thursday.

Voting is being held in all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana and one seat in Chandigarh.

In Chandigarh, over six lakh voters will decide the fate of 17 candidates.

The big fight in Chandigarh is between former railways minister and Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal, who is the sitting MP from Chandigarh, and three women challengers – Kirron Kher (BJP), Gulkirat Kaur Panag (Gul Panag) of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Jannat Jahan-ul-Haq (Bahujan Samaj Party).

Kirron Kher and Gul Panag are celebrity candidates from Mumbai’s film industry. Both have lived in Chandigarh earlier.

In Chandigarh’s urban polling stations, voters could be seen queuing up even before 7 a..m, the official time for balloting to begin.

Chandigarh has over 6.13 lakh eligible voters and 519 polling stations. It has over 2.81 lakh women voters while there are over 1.71 lakh young voters (20-29 years).

In Haryana, voters could be seen at most polling booths since early morning.

Nearly 1.61 crore people, including over 73.8 lakh women, are eligible to vote in Haryana to decide the fate of 230 candidates, including 10 women candidates.

As many as 45,000 police personnel and 74 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed across Haryana. There are 16,244 polling stations in the state.