Bhopal, May 7 (IANS): Polling across nine parliamentary constituencies in Madhya Pradesh began on Tuesday morning in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

Long queues of voters were seen at polling booths in the morning as many of them wanted to exercise their franchise before the temperature rises.

Besides the state capital Bhopal, voting is underway in Gwalior, Morena, Bhind, Rajgarh, Guna, Sagar, Betul and Vidisha parliamentary constituencies.

The Election Commission has set up 20,456 polling booths across the nine seats for over 1.77 crore eligible voters.

Notable candidates in the fray in the third phase include former Chief Ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha) and Digvijaya Singh (Rajgarh), Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), former Bhopal mayor, Alok Sharma (Bhopal) and former Congress MLA Praveen Pathak (Gwalior).

In total, 127 candidates are in the fray from the nine parliamentary seats in the state.