Polling began Saturday morning for the 70-member Delhi Assembly polls in which AAP and BJP appeared to be the main contenders, Indian media reported.

The voting began at 8:00am at over 12,000 polling stations, of which 714 have been identified as ‘critical’ and 191 ‘highly critical’. Polling is expected to go on till 6:00pm.

The Times of India says, over 1.33 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. About 673 candidates are in the fray in the contest. Over 64,000 police personnel had been deployed across the city to ensure free and fair polls.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Delhi to go and vote in record numbers.

Modi tweeted: ‘As Delhi votes today, urging voters to go out & vote in large numbers. I particularly call upon my young friends to vote in record numbers.’

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi called the day a 'historic' one, appealing to the people of the national capital to vote in large numbers in the ongoing polls, dnaindia reported.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the residents to come out and vote. ‘Everyone should go to cast their vote, after taking a bath and remembering god. You will definitely win,’ Kejriwal tweeted.

Kiran Bedi, Indian vice president Hamid Ansari Saturday cast his vote in the Delhi assembly elections, IANS reported.

Security has been tightened around all the polling booths. Delhi police is working in tandem with neighbouring states. Almost 180 polling booths in Delhi have been recognised as hyper-sensitive, CNN-IBN reported.

According to media reports, polling booths were cordoned off six hours before polling. Meanwhile, a BJP MLA Sahib Singh Chauhan alleged that his car was attacked early on Saturday.