Sri Lanka goes to polls today to elect a new Parliament. The voting, which started at 7 this morning, will continue till 4 pm to elect 196 members. This is the first post conflict General election in Sri Lanka.A total of 7620 candidates from 36 political parties and 301 groups are contesting the elections from 22 districts. People will be able to cast their votes at more than 11000 polling stations . The counting is scheduled to begin a few hours after the last ballot is cast at nearly 1400 counting centres. 20 counting centres have especially been established to count the vote of the Internally Displaced Tamil civilians.More than 80,000 security personnels are on duty to prevent any untoward incidents and assist in the conduct of free and fair elections.It is mainly a contest between the ruling UPFA led by Mahinda Rajapaksa and the main opposition United national Alliance Party led by the former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.The new Parliament is scheduled to meet on 22nd of April.