Patna, May 20 (IANS): The voting was picking up in Bihar's five Lok Sabha seats where the Election Commission registered 21.11 per cent polling in the first four hours on Monday.

The Lok Sabha seats where polling is underway are Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Saran and Hajipur.

Voters were queuing up outside polling stations located in these constituencies.

Till 11 a.m. Sitamarhi recorded 22.70 per cent, Muzaffarpur 22.45 per cent, Madhubani 22.37 per cent, Saran 20.75 per cent and Hajipur 17.36 per cent polling as per the EC.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) H.R. Srinivasa said that the voting for the fifth phase started at 7 a.m. on Monday and no incident of violence was reported in any of the five constituencies.

“After the two days of intense heatwave, the atmosphere in Bihar has improved. I want to appeal to the voters to step out from their houses and reach polling centres to use their voting rights in the festival of democracy,” Srinivasa said.

“EVMs and VVPATs are working well at every polling station. We have done the first level of checking of all EVMs efficiently and hence only a few complaints have been registered about the malfunctioning in this Lok Sabha election so far. We also have adequate numbers of EVMs in the backup zone,” Srinivasa said.