Lok Sabha Election Updates: Voter turnout of 57.52% recorded till 5pm, highest in West Bengal

A Sadhu shows his ink-marked finger after voting at a polling station in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh on May 20.

Lok Sabha Election 2024 Updates: Voting for the fifth of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections 2024 concluded at 5pm. As many as 49 constituencies (General-39; ST-03; SC-07) across eight states and Union Territories voted to decide the fate of 695 candidates. This is the smallest phase in terms of the number of constituencies for which the voting will take place Polling for 35 assembly constituencies of the Odisha Legislative Assembly will took place simultaneously on Monday.

The states and union territories where polling was held in the 5th phase are Jharkhand (3), Odisha (5), Uttar Pradesh (14), Bihar (5), Maharashtra (13), West Bengal (7), Ladakh (1) and, Jammu and Kashmir (1). As voting closes, 49 constituencies, 428 of the Lok Sabha’s 543 seats have gone to polls in the elections that began on April 19.

Several key candidates were in the fray in the fifth phase, including union minister Smriti Irani, who is eyeing a second term from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi, union ministers Rajnath Singh (Lucknow) and Piyush Goyal (Mumbai North), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (Rae Bareli), LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan (Hajipur), Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde's son Shrikant Shinde (Kalyan), National Conference leader Omar Abdullah (Baramulla) and RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Rohini Acharya (Saran).

Lok Sabha Election 2024: Key facts about phase 5

• Over 8.95 crore voters include 4.69 crore males, 4.26 crore females, and 5,409 third-gender electors.
• Around 9.47 lakh polling officials welcomed over 8.95 crore voters across 94,732 polling stations.
• All eyes are on Uttar Pradesh's Amethi and Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seats, both synonymous with the Congress party's Gandhi family. Rahul Gandhi is contesting from his family borough Rae Bareli against UP horticulture minister Dinesh Pratap Singh of the BJP. Gandhi had lost the Amethi seat to Smriti Irani in 2019 but won the Wayanad seat in Kerala.
• Campaigning for the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections ended on Saturday, May 18. The last date for filing nominations for this phase was May 3.
• According to the Election Commission, until now, the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 has seen the voter turnout of about 66.95%. Around 451 million people have already voted, during the first four phases of ongoing General Elections.