Men and women dressd in traditional attires were seen queued up outside the many polling stations in all districts well before voting began at 7 a.m.

Around 25 per cent of the 7,68,181 voters cast their votes by 10 a.m., Deputy Additional Chief Electoral Officer C.C. Lalchhuangkina told  over the phone quoting reports from all eight districts.

"Conducive situation and favourable weather helped the people to exercise their franchise smoothly," he added.

"Except for a few EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines)- VVPAT (Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) device malfunctioning, no untoward incident was reported so far.

"Like previous elections, polling was absolutely peaceful. As Mizo society is very disciplined and Church guided, electioneering has always been incident-free in the state," he said.

The nine-hour long polling would draw to a close at 4 p.m.

In all, 7,68,181 voters, including 393,685 women, would decide the fate of the 209 candidates, of whom 15 were women.

In 2013, only six women had contested in the Assembly polls and none were elected.

Mizoram's Joint Chief Electoral Officer Zorammuana told IANS that no untoward incident has been reported so far from anywhere in the state.

Besides the two national parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), many regional parties have fielded candidates in most of the 40 assembly seats.

These include the main opposition Mizo National Front (MNF), People's Representation for Identity and Status of Mizoram (PRISM), Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) and Meghalaya-based National People's Party (NPP).

However, the main contest was likely to be between the ruling Congress and the MNF. Both the parties have fielded 40 candidates each. The BJP has fielded candidates in 39 constituencies.

Except for 10 years -- 1998-2003 and 2003-2008 -- the Congress has been in power in Mizoram since it became a full-fledged state in 1987.

Counting will be on December 11 along with four other poll-bound states -- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Chhattisgarh.