Voting is being held today on 57 seats in the last phase of Lok Sabha elections, 904 candidates including PM Modi are in the fray
In the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections, voting will be held on Saturday in the Union Territory of Chandigarh and 57 seats in seven states. In this phase, voting will also take place in the Varanasi parliamentary constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting for the third consecutive time. In this phase, voting will take place in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, all 13 seats in Punjab, four in Himachal Pradesh, 13 in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three in Jharkhand.
The prestige of these big leaders is at stake in the final phase
Apart from this, elections will also be held on the remaining 42 assembly seats of Odisha. By-elections for six assembly seats of Himachal Pradesh will also be held along with this. A total of 904 candidates are in the fray. Among the prominent candidates are Union Minister Anurag Thakur, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti and actress Kangana Ranaut.
More than 10 crore people will be able to vote
In this phase, more than 10.06 crore citizens are eligible to vote, including about 5.24 crore men, 4.82 crore women and 3,574 ‘third gender’ voters. With the voting on Saturday, the voting process which started on April 19 will end. So far, voting has been done for 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and union territories. Voting was also held for Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim assemblies. Counting of votes will be done on June 4.
This much voting was done in six phases
In the first six phases, the voting percentage was 66.14 percent, 66.71 percent, 65.68 percent, 69.16 percent, 62.2 percent and 63.36 percent respectively. Since the Election Commission announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections on March 16, Modi has conducted 206 public relations programs including rallies and road shows.
BJP-Akali Dal fighting elections alone for the first time after 1996 in Punjab
Voting will also be held in this phase for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab and the only seat of Chandigarh, in which ‘India’ alliance partners Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are contesting separately and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have also entered the electoral fray alone. BJP and SAD are contesting the Lok Sabha elections on their own for the first time in the state after 1996. On the other hand, two parties of ‘India’ alliance (Congress and AAP) have fielded their own candidates.
These are the prominent faces in Himachal
In Mandi, the prestige of Ranaut and Himachal Pradesh Minister Vikramaditya Singh is at stake. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur is contesting for the fifth time from Hamirpur and former Union Minister Anand Sharma is the Congress candidate from Kangra Lok Sabha constituency.
These prominent leaders are contesting elections in Bihar
In this phase in Bihar, voting will take place in Sasaram, Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Ara, Buxar, Karakat and Jehanabad where about 1.62 crore voters will decide the political future of 134 candidates. In the state, Union Minister RK Singh is trying to make a ‘hat-trick’ of victory from Ara, where his main rival is the sitting MLA Sudama Prasad of CPI ML. Senior BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad is the candidate from Patna Sahib and he is pitted against Congress spokesperson Anshul Abhijeet. Misa Bharti is trying her luck for the third time in Pataliputra. BJP MP Ramkripal Yadav is trying to make a ‘hat-trick’ of victory on this seat.
Voting will be held here in UP
The 13 Lok Sabha seats of this phase in Uttar Pradesh include Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (reserved), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj (reserved), which are located in 11 districts. Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the seventh phase, 11 are general category, while two are reserved for Scheduled Castes.
These are the main candidates including PM Modi
Among the main candidates in this phase, apart from Prime Minister Modi from Varanasi, Union Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), Union Minister of State Anupriya Patel (Mirzapur) and Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary (Maharajganj) are trying their luck, while former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar (Ballia), Mafia Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan and actress Kajal Nishad (Gorakhpur) are also contesting the elections. Modi is in the election fray to win for the third consecutive time from Varanasi, the ancient spiritual city situated on the banks of the Ganges. Prime Minister Modi is being challenged by Ajay Rai, the candidate of opposition alliance ‘India’ and the president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of Congress, on the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat. Rai has challenged Prime Minister Modi on this seat twice before.
TMC’s credibility at stake
Voting will be held on Saturday in South Bengal, considered the traditional stronghold of Trinamool Congress. In the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections, voting will be held in Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbor, Jadavpur, Kolkata South and Kolkata North seats of West Bengal. Trinamool Congress had won all these seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Exit polls will be released after 6.30 pm
As per the guidelines of the Election Commission, television channels and news organisations will be able to broadcast the exit poll data and its results after 6.30 pm on June 1. The Election Commission said that teams of polling personnel have been sent to their respective polling stations with EVMs and election material. It said that basic facilities like drinking water, ramps and toilets are being provided at 1.09 lakh polling stations so that voting can take place in a comfortable and safe environment.
