The city of Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir had a relaxed feel on the day of polling.

Children played and few took notice of the vote in Srinagar

Children played cricket on otherwise busy streets and hardly anyone showed an interest in what was happening in the latest stage of India's general election.

Very low turnout figures were reported in the state, where separatists have called for a boycott of the polls.

In the early hours of voting in Srinagar, not a single person had turned up to vote at many polling stations.

We found election workers sitting outside the booth along with security men at one empty polling station.

Polling officer Pir Ghulam Rasool told the BBC: "We don't expect voters to turn up, but we have to do our duty and be here."

Varanasi is witnessing a three-cornered contest between the BJP, the main opposition Congress party, and the regional Samajwadi Party.

Disenchantment with politicians in India's famous holy city in the populous and politically crucial Uttar Pradesh state runs deep.

Swami Parmanandi: "Voting is a farce"

Swami Parmanandi, a Hindu monk, is fed up with politicians and elections.

"Voting is a farce. Whoever wins does nothing for the society. Forget creating jobs and curbing the crime rate, there is not even a good clean road leading to the banks of the Ganges river," he says, just after finishing his prayers inside a temple.

"I am not going to vote. These politicians should bathe in the Ganges to absolve their sins. But there are some of us with political inclinations, who will go and vote."

Every day thousands of people bathe in the river with a fervent belief that the murky waters will wash away their sins.

But on election day, politics is dominating over the religious beliefs of one of the oldest cities in the world.

Early morning joggers turned up at polling stations in Bombay (Mumbai) on their way back home to cast their ballots.

Some of the country's richest business families live here, but the constituency is also the most apathetic to elections.

Its average voter turnout has hovered at under 40%, well below the national average.

Anand Mahindra: Local issues are as important as national issues

Early turnout levels looked reasonable enough, however. In at least one polling station, voters could be seen arriving in chauffeur-driven cars to cast their ballots.

One unusually keen voter in the constituency is Anand Mahindra, managing director of car and tractor manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra.

"I look at the candidate and see what he has done or what he could do for the constituency. I think local issues are as important as national issues," he said.

Voting here, where Rahul Gandhi is hoping to become the fourth-generation of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty to be elected to parliament, got off to a brisk start.

Rahul Gandhi was mobbed by supporters in Amethi

Rahul visited one of the polling centres early on to see how it was all going. He was mobbed by hundreds of supporters.

It was like watching a movie star, rather than a politician. He told the BBC he thought voting was going well.

Supporters of his Congress party said they wanted him to become the latest of the family tree to become prime minister.

Sister Magdeline: Voting for freedom of religion

Enthusiastic voters queued up outside polling stations at the crack of dawn on an overcast day in the southern city of Mangalore on the coast of Karnataka.

Here there is a straight contest between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's BJP and the main opposition Congress party.

Mangalore has a sizeable Christian population.

Sister Magdeline of a local church, who had queued up at a booth, told the BBC: "I want to vote for freedom of religion and the right to practice their religion."

Goa, India's smallest state with a population of 1.4 million, has just two parliamentary seats.

Voters turned out in good numbers from early in the morning.

Shanta Bapu Morajkar's family say they are for the BJP

"I've reached close to death's door," says Shanta Bapu Morajkar, whose grandson helped her to the polling booth.

She says she does not know her age, but her voter identity card puts it at 80 years.

The battle here is between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress and its breakaway Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance.

The BJP won both the seats in the previous 1999 elections, largely due to a divided opposition.

The mood in the town is dull.

There is hardly any enthusiasm for the election. There are no posters, banners or party flags.

There were no posters, banners or party flags in Baramati

And there are an even fewer number of voters at polling stations.

The low attendance is partly blamed on water - or the lack of it.

"Water comes only for an hour every morning", said Babu Rao, a resident of this drought hit constituency.

"People will head to polling centres once they have stored enough water for the day", he said.

Voting has been peaceful in the Chamarajnagar parliamentary constituency bordering the jungles of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states where the notorious bandit Veerappan operates.

Additional police forces have been deployed in this region, 220km (140 miles) from Bangalore city, to prevent possible attempts to disrupt the polls by the fugitive bandit who has a $1.1m ransom on his head.

Veerappan had threatened to launch a retaliatory strike against a Supreme Court order to hang four of his associates for their alleged role in the blast in the state in 1993, which left 20 policemen dead.

The widow of a former state minister who was kidnapped and allegedly killed by the brigand is contesting a state election from Karnataka, where both federal and state polls are being held.

Ms Parimala, widow of former minister H Nagappa, is contesting from her husband's constituency of Hannur.

Communities who have fought and killed each other in a fierce conflict over land and political power - Muslims and Hindus of Bengali origin, Lalung tribesmen, ethnic Assamese - all turned out to vote in large numbers.

Turnout was high in Nellie, where some voters arrived on elephant

"The electronic voting machine has malfunctioned, so we sweat in this hot sun. But we will not go until we have voted," said Asiqa Rehman, a 28-year-old housewife.

"I have not yet fed my baby, but he can bear with me for this day," she said.

Her father and two brothers, descendants of Muslim migrants from what is now Bangladesh, died in the fierce riots that gripped Nellie in February 1983.

Nearly 3,000 Muslims died in the riots, massacred by the ethnic Assamese and Lalungs who wanted to evict them as part of protests against so-called foreigners.

Ranadhir Chakrabarty, a local Congress party worker, said hundreds of farmers had threatened not to vote unless the government constructed a sluice gate on the embankment of a river that floods arable land in and around Nellie.

But villager Milan Pator said they all turned up to vote when the Congress leaders promised to construct the sluice gate "within a few years".