By Sanjay Sharma
IANS
Bhopal : Polling is underway Saturday for Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri assembly seat, considered a pocket borough of the erstwhile Scindia royal family.
The by-polls in the constituency have been necessitated following the resignation of the Bharatiya Janata Patry's (BJP) Yashodhara Raje Scindia after her election to the Lok Sabha from Gwalior.
While 15 candidates are in the race for the seat, the main contest is between the ruling BJP's nominee Ganesh Gautam and Virendra Raghuvanshi of the Congress.
Narendra Birthare of the newly floated Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS) party is also being considered a strong contender.
Though hardly 10 per cent of the 1,96,000 electorate cast their votes in the first two hours, polling picked up after 9 a.m., official sources said.
Elaborate security arrangements are in place at all polling booths. Five companies each of the Central Reserve Police Force and SAF, besides district police personnel have been deployed.
The counting of the votes will be done on June 5.