Photos: Best of Stage 1 polling day from HT photographers

An estimated 93 million people voted on Thursday to choose 91 members of the Lok Sabha in the first phase of a bitterly fought general election, marred by stray incidents of violence, clashes between rival party workers, and complaints of faulty electoral rolls, electronic voting machines (EVM), even not-so-indelible ink. HT photographers across several of the states captured the electorate out exercising their franchise. Here’s a selection of the best scenes their eyes framed amid the action. ...read more

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Updated on Apr 12, 2019 04:40 PM IST

A bit of a ways to go until this young boy could be on the other side of the barricade where voters are queued outside a polling station, but this costumed police officer no doubt made an impression, at Sawal village, in Uttar Pardesh. (Raj K Raj / HT Photo)

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A polling officer puts an indelible ink mark on the index finger of a voter, at Kawal village, in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh. Yesterday’s voting was held across 18 states and two Union territories. (Vipin Kumar / HT Photo)

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Women exit a polling centre after casting their vote, at Bhatta Parsaul, in Uttar Pradesh. The voter turnout where 142 million people were eligible to exercise their franchise, averaged 66%, according to a Hindustan Times calculation of individual breakups provided by the Election Commission of India. (Virendra Singh Gosain / HT Photo)

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A woman belonging to the Dongria Kondh community stands in a queue ahead of casting her vote, in Rayagada district, Odisha. The turnout in the first phase of the 2014 election was 70%. (Arabinda Mahapatra / HT Photo)

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Voters queue at a polling station in Shelvat, Bandipora district, some 30 Kms from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. At least three people died in election-related violence — two in Andhra Pradesh and a teenaged boy in Jammu and Kashmir — but the ECI said polling was largely peaceful. (Waseem Andrabi / HT Photo)

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A man casts his vote at Loyi village, in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh. A total of nearly 900 million people are eligible to exercise their franchise in the seven-phase general election this time around. (Vipin Kumar / HT Photo)

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A polling officer puts an indelible ink mark on the index finger of a voter, in Jammu. In Baramulla in the Kashmir valley and the Jammu region, voter turnout was 32.29% and 67.39%. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

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Voters arrive to cast their votes, at Sector 12, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Voter turnout varied from state-to-state on Thursday, a day on which the two principal contestants, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress both voiced confidence that they had set off on the course of victory. (Mohd Zakir / HT Photo)

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A woman lifts up her veil for a polling official to verify her identity against her documents, at Shahpur in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. According to the ECI’s estimates, the highest turnout was recorded in Tripura (81.8%) followed by West Bengal (81%). (Raj K Raj / HT Photo)

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People stand in queues outside a station, at Atta Gujjran in Greater Noida. Andhra Pradesh recorded a turnout of 73% and neighbouring Telangana 60%. Turnout was 69%, 60% and 78% , respectively, in Sikkim, Mizoram and Nagaland, in which the elections were concluded in one phase. (Virendra Singh Gosain / HT Photo)

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A volunteer helps a differently-abled woman as she arrives to cast her vote, at Degree College in Kairana, Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the star campaigner for the BJP, and his principal challenger, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, voiced confidence that their parties would emerge victorious, before polling ended in the first phase. (Vipin Kumar / HT Photo)

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Voters lined up at community centre in Sector 19 early in the morning to cast their votes, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. In election-related violence on Thursday, two political activists, one each belonging to the Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress Party, died in clashes in Andhra Pradesh, where polling took place in all 25 Lok Sabha wards simultaneously with the assembly polls. (Sunil Ghosh / HT Photo)

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People in queues to cast their votes at Sawal village, in Uttar Pardesh. The last day of polling in the seven-phase election is May 19, and the counting of votes for all 543 Lok Sabha seats will be taken up and results declared on May 23. (Raj K Raj / HT Photo)

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In Rae Bareli, where Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi accompanied UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi when she filed her nomination papers, the Congress president said: “There have been many people in Indian history who had the arrogance to believe that they are invincible and bigger than the people of India... His (Modi’s) invincibility will be in view after the election results.” (Ajay Aggarwal / HT Photo)