LS polls last round: 66 mn to vote in 41 seats across 3 states; Modi vs Kejriwal in Varanasi

In the ninth phase, 600 candidates are in the fray in UP, Bihar and West Bengal. Of the 41 seats going to polls, the TMC had won 14 seats in 2009, followed by six each by the BJP and the SP, five by the BSP and four by the Congress.

Updated on: May 11, 2014, 23:59:44 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Forty-one constituencies across three states including the high-profile Varanasi seat on Monday will bring down the curtains on the 35-day-long marathon polling for the nine-phased Elections 2014.

Over 506 million people — more than the combined population of the US, Germany, Canada and the UK — have exercised their franchise in 502 constituencies where polling has already been held in eight phases.

With the summer elections registering a voter turnout of 66.21% so far, all eyes are on whether the Indian electorate can surpass the polling percentage of 64 registered in the 1984 elections held after Indira Gandhi's assassination.

In the ninth phase, 600 candidates are in the fray in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Nearly 66 million voters are expected to seal their electoral fortunes.

Of the 41 seats going to polls, the Trinamool Congress (Bengal's ruling party) had won 14 seats in 2009, followed by six each by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (UP's ruling party), five by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and four by the Congress.

The spotlight in this round will be on Varanasi, where BJP's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi will take on Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) Arvind Kejriwal and Congress' Ajay Rai.

Altogether 42 candidates are in the fray for the Varanasi parliamentary seat which has 1.7 million registered voters. Over 45,000 security personnel have been deployed in the constituency to ensure free and fair polls. Central paramilitary forces have been deployed at all the 1,562 polling stations which are also under CCTV coverage.

The high-voltage campaigning in the temple town was marked by Modi's mega road show during his nomination filing, Kejriwal's public meetings, clashes between AAP volunteers and alleged BJP workers as well as a rally by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

The district administration's denial of permission for a Modi rally in a sensitive area of Varanasi had triggered a political storm recently, with the BJP accusing the election commission of being partial and the poll watchdog refuting the allegations in rare press conference.

Modi fighting the poll battle in Varanasi is strategically important for the BJP, which hopes to put up a good show in Poorvanchal comprising eastern UP and parts of Bihar.

In 2009, the Samajwadi Party (SP) had won six of the 18 UP seats going to polls on Monday. The BSP had won five seats, the BJP four and the Congress three.

Considering importance of the region, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has decided to contest from Azamgarh.

Other prominent leaders in the last phase are Union minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Behrampur- West Bengal), BJP leader Jagdambika Pal (Domariyaganj), Union minister RPN Singh (Kushi Nagar— both UP) and former minister and RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (Vaishali-Bihar).

In neighbouring Bihar, six seats are up for grabs. Of them, the BJP and the ruling Janata Dal (United) — which was then an ally of the saffron party — had won two each, while Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had bagged a solitary seat. One seat had gone to an independent candidate.

The Congress-RJD alliance is hoping for a comeback by scoring over Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), which had parted ways with the BJP last year.

Seventeen seats go to polls in Bengal as well. The last phase of polling is a key test for the ruling Trinamool, which had won 14 of these seats.

With the BJP trying to find a foothold in Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Modi featured in heated verbal duels in the campaigning phase.

The Left Front, which was ousted by the Trinamool in 2011 after its 34-year rule, is hoping for a turnaround.

(with PTI inputs)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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