New Delhi, May 04: Polling for the third round of elections gets underway tomorrow in 83 parliamentary constituencies in seven states - most of them straddling the Hindi heartland. Tight security arrangements have been made the polls. 90,000 personnel of Central Para-Military Forces will be deployed for election duty across seven states with the major chunk of deployment in Jammu and Kashmir where CRPF and BSF will together have nearly 33,300 personnel for the lone seat of Anantnag where ruling PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is in fray against CPI(M) leader Yusuf Tarigami.

According to Union Home Ministry sources, a total of 458 companies of CRPF, 175 of BSF, 91 of CISF, ITBP 8, Railway Protection Force (RPF) 28, Special Services Bureau (SSB) 25 and state armed police forces 24 will supplement the state police forces to ensure an incident-free poll. Among key contestants, Murli Manohar Joshi is seeking re-election from Allahabad whereas Mulayam Singh is contesting from Mainpuri, a seat he once held. Akhilesh Singh, his son, is in fray from Kannauj.

Shahnawaz Hussain is contesting from Kishanganj in Bihar and Prahlad Patel seeks re-election from Chhindwara against Congress veteran Kamalnath.

Other contests to watch out would be in Rajasthan, where former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar is contesting from Churu while his Congress colleague former Union Minister Buta Singh is pitted against Sushila Laxman, wife of former BJP president Bangaru Laxman in Jalore. Bureau Report