Patna: Voters, many of them women, queued up at polling booths in Bihar hours before the start of the third phase of assembly election on Wednesday and exercised their franchise in huge numbers, an official said. Around 6 percent of the 14.5 million voters eligible to cast their ballot had voted in the first one hour hour, the official said.

"Voters stood in long queues outside polling booths under the shadow of the high tech central paramilitary security forces to cast their ballot," an official of the chief electoral office here said. No incident of violence has been so far reported in the 50 constituencies, including 23 Maoist-affected, officials said.