People of nine states are voting on Monday to seal the fate of 961 candidates contesting for 72 Lok Sabha seats, mostly in the Hindi heartland, under the fourth phase of the country’s mega seven-phase electoral exercise.
The Election Commission has set up 140,852 polling booths and made elaborate security arrangements for the safety of the 128 million people voting today.
Polling is underway in 17 seats in Maharashtra, 13 each in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, eight seats in West Bengal, six each in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, five in Bihar, three in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
The stakes are high for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies as they had swept 56 of these seats in 2014, leaving just two for the Congress and the rest for other opposition parties such as the Trinamool Congress (six) and the Biju Janata Dal (six).
The fate of a large number of high profile candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided in this phase. Among other key contestants are Kanhaiya Kumar (Communist Party of India), Baijayant Panda (BJP), Urmila Matondkar (Congress) and Dimple Yadav (Samajwadi Party).
{{/usCountry}}The fate of a large number of high profile candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided in this phase. Among other key contestants are Kanhaiya Kumar (Communist Party of India), Baijayant Panda (BJP), Urmila Matondkar (Congress) and Dimple Yadav (Samajwadi Party).
{{/usCountry}}The 2019 polls are being conducted in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. Results will be declared on May 23.