Phase 4 of 2024 Lok Sabha elections today: 1,717 candidates, 96 seats in 10 states/UT | 10 facts

Lok Sabha Election 2024: Polling for the fourth phase began at 7am and will continue till 6pm across all Lok Sabha constituencies as well as for assembly seats.

Voting for the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024 is being held in 96 Parliamentary Constituencies across nine states and one union territory on Monday, May 13. All 175 seats of the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly and 28 seats of the Odisha legislative assembly will go to polls on the same day. The polling began at 7am and will continue till 6pm across all Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies.

Burqa-clad voters show their inked fingers after casting their votes at a polling station during the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in Kanpur on May 13, 2024. (PTI)

Polling will be held in all 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, all 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh, 13 in Uttar Pradesh, five in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in Maharashtra, four in Odisha, eight in West Bengal and one in Jammu and Kashmir. Follow Live Updates on Lok Sabha polls 2024

In this phase, issues such as reservations, appeasement politics, corruption and jobs dominated the battle of narratives. Follow full coverage of the Lok Sabha elections 2024

Phase four of Lok Sabha elections 2024: Top updates

1. A total of 1,717 candidates from 10 states/UT will contest elections in phase 4 of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission of India has said. According to the poll panel, a total of 4,264 nominations were filed for 96 Parliamentary constituencies across.
2. The election commission said the maximum number of nomination forms were received from Telangana (1,488) followed by Andhra Pradesh with 1,103 nominations from 25 constituencies.
3. The poll body on Sunday said polling time in certain assembly segments of 17 Parliamentary constituencies of Telangana was increased from 7am till 6pm to increase voters' participation.
4. It is the first major election in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA has MPs from over 40 of these 96 seats that will go to polls in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

All eyes are on several high-profile contests, such as former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from Kannauj, Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar), and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former cricketer Yusuf Pathan of the Trinamool Congress are vying for victory in Baharampur in West Bengal, alongside BJP's Pankaja Munde in Beed, Maharashtra. Also in the spotlight are AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi in Hyderabad, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh Congress president YS Sharmila in Kadapa.

TMC's Mahua Moitra, who was expelled from Lok Sabha amid cash-for-query allegations, is seeking reelection from Krishnanagar in West Bengal. In Asansol, the battle heats up between film star-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha and BJP's veteran leader SS Ahluwalia.

The India Meteorological Department predicted that the parliamentary constituencies going to polls in the fourth phase are likely to experience normal to below-normal temperatures, and there will be no heatwave-like conditions in these areas on polling day.

The voter turnout in the first three phases of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 was 66.14 per cent, 66.71 per cent and 65.68 per cent, respectively.