Jammu: Jammu parliamentary constituency, which goes to polls in the first phase of elections on April 16, has an electorate of 17,21,696, the highest for any Lok Sabha seat.

"The Jammu constituency has the highest number of voters in the state. It has 17,21,696 voters, which includes 23,674 service electors," election department officials told.

However, in 2004 elections, where Congress' Madan Lal Sharma had defeated his nearest rival Nirmal Singh of the BJP by a margin of 17,568 votes, there were 18,49,989 voters.

The assembly segments going to the polls are Samba and Vijaypur in Samba district, Nagrota, Gandhinagar, Jammu east, Jammu west, Bishnah, RS Pura, Suchetgarh, Marh, Raipur-Domana, Akhnoor and Chhamb in Jammu district, Nowshera, Darhal, Rajouri and Kalakote in Rajouri district and Surankote, Mendhar and Poonch-Haveli in Poonch district.

The Jammu district leads with 9,31,836 voters followed by Rajouri district which has 3,56,270 electors. Poonch district has 2,59,103 total registered voters while Samba district has 1,74,487 voters, they said.

As many as 2,210 polling stations spread across 20 segments of Jammu Lok Sabha seat will be set up to facilitate voting.