DHAKA: Hundreds of thousands voted with enthusiasm Saturday in a fiercely contested assembly election in Delhi of India in which both the BJP and AAP claimed victory.

While balloting was initially slow in middle and upper middle class areas, polling centres in low income neighbourhoods witnessed virtual mobs right from the time the exercise began at 8:00am, reports mangalorean.com in the evening.

The country’s Election Commission officials, according to media, said that 63.5 per cent of 1.3 crore voters had been inked by 5 pm.

However, 66 per cent had voted in the 2013 assembly elections, they added.

Among the early voters were former chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, who was greeted by crowds of supporters, and Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi besides Congress leader Ajay Maken and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Nevertheless, midway through the balloting that ends at 6:00pm., both the AAP and the BJP claimed they were poised to win.

The election result will come out Tuesday.

** Delhi elections: Bedi confident of win

BDST: 1912 HRS, FEB 07, 2015