Tamil Nadu/Kerala/Puducherry: Polling kicked off in southern part of the country. Voting began on Monday morning in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. 
Tamil Nadu:
Around 5.82 crore voters are set to elect a new 234-member assembly in the polls being held on Monday and on May 23 for Thanjavur and Aravakurichi constituencies.
The Election Commission has postponed the elections in Thanjavur and Aravakurichi after it received complaints about large scale distribution of money to the voters by political parties and their candidates vitiating the electoral process.
In 234 constituencies a total of 3,776 candidates including 320 women are in the fray. There are 1,566 independent candidates are also trying their electoral fortunes.
In the 232 constituencies in which the poll is being held on Monday, there are 3,728 candidates in the fray.
The state is seeing a multi-cornered contest.
The ruling AIADMK is going to the polls aligning with a couple of smaller outfits fielding its candidates in 227 seats and the balance seven has been given to its allies.
The DMK has aligned with the Congress, two Muslim parties and some smaller outfits.
The third front led by the DMDK comprises the CPI-M, CPI, VCK, TMC and MDMK under its fold.
The PMK is going it alone while BJP has aligned with few smaller parties.
Though the fight is mainly between the AIADMK and the DMK the polls might through up a surprise element as well.
Kerala:
At sharp 7 a.m. on Monday, polling got underway across Kerala to elect 140 new legislators to the 14th Kerala Legislative Assembly.
The electoral battle in the state is principally between the traditional rival fronts — the Congress-led UDF and the CPI-M-led LDF.
But the BJP-led NDA alliance after a massive election campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also having high hopes.
The cloudy skies and rains in some places appears not to have dented the interests of the voters as in most places people had come well before time and in many places the queue of voters started to grow.
A total of 1,203 contestants, including 109 women, are in the fray.
As per the election officials, the state has 2,60,19,284 voters comprising of 1,25,10,589 male, 1,35,08,693 female and two voters belonging to the third gender.
In all there are 21,498 regular polling booths and 148 auxiliary polling booths, of which there are 1,233 categorised as critical and including 119 booths that are in Maoist-influenced areas.
A record 1,11,897 polling officials and more than 52,000 personnel from the Kerala Police besides around 100 companies of central forces, 2,000 officials from the excise department and another 2,027 home guards is responsible to ensure the poll passes off peacefully.
Voting ends at 6 p.m.
Puducherry:
Polling begins to elect the 30-member assembly in Puducherry at 7 a.m. on Monday.
Over 9.4 lakh voters are expected to exercise their democratic right of voting to elect their representatives.
A total of 344 candidates are in the fray.
The main fight is between the Congress-DMK combine and the ruling All India NR Congress (AINRC).
The AIADMK-the ruling party in Tamil Nadu- is going it alone in Puducherry.
