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Voting ends in VP poll

August 10, 2007

Polling to the 13th vice-presidential election ended at 5 pm on Friday.

The electroral  fate of the United Progressive Alliance-Left candidate Hamid Ansari, National Democratic Alliance nominee Najma Heptulla and Third Front candidate Rashid Masood will be decided in the poll.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharia, Communist Party of India leaders Gurudas Dasgupta and D Raja cast their votes within 10 minutes of the polling, which began at 10 am.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, accompanied by Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chaudhury, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri and Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, voted at 10:30 am.

Former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Najma Heptulla and Bharatiya Janata Party leader SS Ahluwalia came at noon.

Vajpayee, Ajit Jogi of the Congress and Pappu Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal came on wheelchairs.

Pappu Yadav came from Tihar jail to vote while Mohammad Shahabuddin came from Siwan jail, where he is in custody.

BJP leaders Lal Kishenchand Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Kalraj Mishra and NDA convenor George Fernandes also voted in the second hour of polling.

Congress MP Priya Dutt, who is pregnant, also came from Mumbai to vote. Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and Jaya Prada, who had abstained from voting in the Presidential election last month, also voted.

Source:

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