Mangalore : People in large number were seen queued up outside various polling stations in Mangalore, as the Lok Sabha elections polling commenced in Dakshina Kannada Constituency on April 17, Thursday at 7 am.

A total of 14 candidates including Janardhan Poojary of Congress, Nalin Kumar Kateel of BJP, M R Vasudeva of Aam Aadmi Party, Yadavn Shetty of CPI (M), Haneef Khan of SDPI, Moosa Kunhi alias Abdul Karim of BSP, Supreeth Kumar Poojary of Hindustan Janata Party, and Independents Sudatt Jain, Advocate Ananda Gatty, K Kushala Bellare, Deepak Rajesh Coelho, Maxim Pinto, Subrahmanya Gowda and K N Soma Shekar are in fray.

This time there are a total of 1564093 voters in DK including 7,90, 423 female voters and 7,73,602 men voters.

DK BJP candidate Nalin Kumar Kateel and his wife exercised their franchise at their polling booth in Ladyhill, Congress candidate Janardhan Poojary cast his vote at Bantwal polling booth.

The voters are also facilitated for the first time with option of NOTA (None of the Above) button in the EVM.

The tight secuirty measures has been stepped for the polls upto 6 pm.