After days of hectic election campaigning, the stage is all set for polling on Monday to elect the 175-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly and also 25 Lok Sabha constituencies from the state. As many as 503 candidates are in the fray for Lok Sabha and 2,705 for Assembly polls, said Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer MK Meena.

Polling will start at 7 am and end at 6 pm , except for a few places where voting will conclude an hour or two prior. The total number of voters in the southern state stands at 4.14 crore, including 2.02 crore male, 2.1 crore female, 3,421 third gender voters and 68,185 service electors.

Key candidates from Andhra Pradesh are: YSRCP president YS Jagan (Pulivendula), TDP supremo and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who is contesting from Kuppam and Janasena chief and actor Pawan Kalyan (Pithapuram). AP Congress president and Jagan’s sister YS Sharmila (Kadapa) and BJP state chief Purandeswari (Rajamahendravaram), among others, are in Lok Sabha poll fray.

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The ruling YSRCP is contesting in all 175 Assembly seats and 25 Lok Sabha segments.

As part of a seat sharing deal among NDA partners, the TDP was allocated 144 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha constituencies while the BJP will contest from six Lok Sabha and 10 Assembly seats. Meanwhile, the Janasena will contest from two Lok Sabha and 21 Assembly seats.

BJP heavyweights, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah, led the campaign in the southern state, while from the Congress, president Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders undertook poll campaigns for their respective party candidates.

The YSRCP campaign centred around the welfare measures that it implemented during the past five years and the NDA highlighted the “failures” of the state government and the doles it would provide, if voted to power.

For the smooth conduct of polls, the Election Commission of India has deployed 1.06 lakh security personnel, including 3,500 Karnataka police, 4,500 Tamil Nadu police, 1,614 ex-servicemen and 246 retired police personnel, among others.

In the 2019 elections, the YSRCP won 151 seats, TDP 23 and Janasena won one seat in the Assembly polls, while YSRCP won in 22 and TDP in three Lok Sabha seats.