Lok Sabha elections 2019: 41% polling till 2 pm on final voting day; clashes in West Bengal

Nearly 41.41% voters cast their votes in the first few hours of polling in the final round of the seven-phase elections, which began on April 11, for electing the 17th Lok Sabha. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi is among the 59 parliamentary seats voting across 7 states.

(Read live updates here)

At 2 pm, the Election Commission website put the overall voting figure at 41.41 per cent, with Jharkhand reporting highest turnout of 52.89% and Bihar lowest of 36.20%.

The PM , as he did in all the earlier phases too, tweeted an appeal in the morning, urging voters to come out and vote in huge numbers. “Your one vote will shape India’s development trajectory in the years to come. I also hope first time voters vote enthusiastically,” he wrote.

West Bengal, which has witnessed high-decibel campaign and also violence during voting, witnessed clashes on Sunday too with Trinamool and BJP blaming each other for violence. Crude bombs were hurled at two places in Gilaberia area in Deganga of North 24 Parganas district under Barasat constituency and in Raidighi of South 24 Parganas district under Mathurapur constituency came in as voters queued up in polling booths.

Read: A look at key seats in phase 7 of Lok Sabha elections

There were allegations that BJP supporters were beaten up and its camp office vandalised allegedly by TMC workers in Kultoli in Jaynagar Lok Sabha . Sayantan Basu, the BJP’s candidate for Basirhat constituency, alleged rigging in several areas and said police was doing nothing to stop it.

BJP candidate in Diamond Harbour constituency, Nilanjan Roy, alleged that his car was vandalised in front of police in Budge Budge area.

“Bike-borne goons came and vandalised by car. We have informed the EC and police super about the incident. The EC has failed to utilise the police and security forces. The poll panel has become a mute spectator. I had told the police that trouble would take place here on polling day,” said Roy.

Mala Roy, the TMC’s candidate in Kolkata South constituency, alleged that central force personnel did not allow her to enter booth number 72 in a polling station in Mudiali under her constituency. Roy said she went after learning that polling was stopped for 45 minutes. She said she will lodge a complaint with the poll watchdog.

Early morning queues were seen at several polling booths in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar was among the early voters and batted for shorter poll schedules: “Elections should not be held over such a long duration, there was a long gap between each phase of voting. I will write to leaders of all parties to build a consensus on this.”

Among the early voters were BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, Sushil Kumar Modi, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rahul Sinha; Congress’s Pawan Kumar Bansal, Trinamool’s Abhishek Banerjee and cricketer Harbhajan Singh.

More than two months of official campaigning for the 2019 general elections ended on Friday. The Election Commission of India (ECI) had announced the schedule on March 10.

Read: ‘I never seek anything from God’, says PM Modi after his Kedarnath yatra

Three states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal — had constituencies scheduled for polling in each of the seven phases in the elections. In addition to these states, Sunday’s polling will include all PCs in the northern states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Three PCs in Jharkhand are also scheduled to vote.

Of the 59 setas where voting will take place, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 33 in the 2014 elections. Its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had won an additional seven seats. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had won just five of these seats.

Varanasi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the BJP’s candidate, will be voting in Sunday’s phase. Gorakhpur, a seat that was held by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for a long time, and which the BJP lost in a by-poll, will also vote. West Bengal, which has nine PCs voting in the final phase, has seen large-scale poll-related violence in these elections. The ECI cited this as a reason to cut short the campaign period in the state by a day. To be sure, opposition parties have questioned the impartiality of the ECI over the manner in which this decision was taken.

Among the northern states, the BJP is running the government in Himachal Pradesh, while the Congress is in power in Punjab. In Madhya Pradesh, eight PCs in the agriculturally prosperous Malwa region are voting in the last phase. Considered to be a BJP stronghold, it has seen rural unrest and agitations against the previous BJP government in the state.  

BIHAR
Arrah	Rajkumar Singh, BJP
Buxar	Ashwini Kumar Choubey, BJP
Sasaram	Chhedi Paswan, BJP
Karakat	Upendra Kushwaha, RLSP
Jahanabad	Arun Kumar, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party
Nalanda	Kaushalendra Kumar, JD(U)
Patna Sahib	Shatrughan Sinha, BJP (now with Congress)
Patliputra	Ram Kripal Yadav, BJP
PUNJAB
Amritsar:	Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Congress
Anandpur Sahib	Prem Singh Chandumajra, SAD
Bathinda	Harsimrat Kaur, SAD
Faridkot (SC)	Sadhu Singh, AAP
Fatehgarh Sahib (SC)	Harinder Singh Khalsa, AAP
Ferozepur	Sher Singh Ghubaya, SAD
Gurdaspur	Sunil Jakhar, Congress
Hoshiarpur (SC)	Vijay Sampla, BJP
Jalandhar (SC)	Santokh Singh Chaudhary, Congress
Khadoor Sahib	Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, SAD (SAD-Taksali)
Ludhiana	Ravneet Singh Bittu, Congress
Patiala	Dharamvira Gandhi, AAP
Sangrur	Bhagwant Mann, AAP
CHANDIGARH
Chandigarh	Kirron Kher, BJP
HIMACHAL PRADESH
Kangra	Shanta Kumar, BJP
Hamirpur	Anurag Thakur, BJP
Mandi	Ramswaroop Sharma, BJP
Shimla	Virender Kashyap, BJP
JHARKHAND
Godda	Nishikant Dubey, BJP
Dumka	Shibu Soren, JMM
Rajmahal	Vijay Hansdak, JM

UTTAR PRADESH
Ballia	Bharat Singh, BJP
Bansgaon	Kamlesh Paswan, BJP
Chandauli	Mahendra Nath Pandey, BJP
Deoria	Kalraj Mishra, BJP
Ghazipur	Manoj Sinha, BJP
Ghosi	Harinarayan Rajbhar, BJP
Gorakhpur	Praveen Kumar Nishad, SP
Kushi Nagar	Rajesh Pandey, BJP
Robertsganj	Chhotelal, BJP
Salempur	Ravindra Kushwaha, BJP
Varanasi	Narendra Modi, BJP
Mirzapur	Anupriya Patel, Apna Dal
Maharajganj	Pankaj Chaudhary, BJP
MADHYA PRADESH (8)
Dewas	Manohar Untwal, BJP
Dhar	Savitri Thakur, BJP
Indore	Sumitra Mahajan (BJP)
Khandwa	Nandkumar Singh Chouhan (BJP)
Khargone	Subhash Patel, BJP
Mandsaur	Sudhir Gupta, BJP
Ratlam	Kantilal Bhuria, Congress
Ujjain	Prof Chintamani Malviya, BJP
WEST BENGAL
Barasat	Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, Trinamool
Basirhat	Idris Ali, Trinamool Congress
Joynagar	Pratima Mondal, Trinamool Congress
Mathurapur	Choudhury Mohan Jatua, Trinamool Congress
Diamond Harbour	Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress
Kolkata South	Subrata Bakshi, Trinamool Congress
Jadavpur	Sugata Bose, Trinamool Congress
Kolkata North	Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Trinamool Congress
Dumdum	Saugata Roy, Trinamool Congress