Today, voting is being held for 102 Lok Sabha seats in 16 states and 5 union territories. Also, votes are being cast today for Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim Assembly. Voting will take place from 7 am to 5 pm. According to the Election Commission, a total of 1,625 candidates are in the fray in the first phase, of which 1,491 are male and 134 female candidates, while there are more than 16.63 crore voters in the first phase. Of these, there are 8.4 crore male and 8.23 crore female voters. The special thing is that this time there are more than 35 lakh 67 thousand youth who will vote for the first time. For elections on such a large scale, 1 lakh 87 thousand polling booths have been made in the first phase itself. There are 10 states including Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand where voting is being held simultaneously for all the seats.
First phase of 2024 war today
Among the 102 seats where voting is taking place today, BJP has the upper hand because in 2019, BJP had won the maximum 40 seats, DMK 24, Congress 15 while others had won 23 seats. In the first phase today, all 39 seats of Tamil Nadu, 12 of Rajasthan, 8 of Uttar Pradesh, 6 of Madhya Pradesh, 5 of Maharashtra, 4 of Bihar, all 5 of Uttarakhand, 5 of Assam, 3 of West Bengal, Manipur, Meghalaya and Voting is taking place on 2 seats each in Arunachal, one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Nagaland, one seat each in Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar and one seat each in Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.
Hot seats and veteran candidates of the first phase-
- Sanjeev Kumar Balyan of BJP from Muzaffarnagar seat of Uttar Pradesh, Jitin Prasad of BJP from Pilibhit.
- Congress’s Imran Masood is in the fray from Saharanpur, SP’s Iqra Hasan is in the fray from Kairana seat.
- Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is in the fray from Maharashtra’s Nagpur seat, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal West, former BJP CM Viplav Dev from Tripura West.
- The fate of former CM and HAM Chief Jitan Ram Manjhi from Gaya seat of Bihar is also decided today.
- Whereas in Uttarakhand, former BJP CM Trivendra Singh Rawat from Haridwar seat, BJP leader Anil Baluni from Pauri Garhwal.
- BJP’s Ajay Bhatt is in the fray from Nainital seat and BJP’s Ajay Tamta is in the fray from Almora-Pithoragarh seat.
- Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath is contesting from Chhindwara seat of Madhya Pradesh while BJP leader Faggan Singh Kulaste is contesting from Mandla seat.
- Himadri Singh of BJP is in the fray from Shahdol seat of MP.
- It is the day to decide the fate of BJP leader Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner, Rajasthan.
- Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, who was a minister in the Gehlot government, is in the fray from Jaipur city seat, while Bhupendra Yadav is in the fray from Alwar seat.
Among the 102 seats on which voting is going on today from North to South, DMK’s A Raja is from Nilgiri seat of Tamil Nadu and BJP leader K is from Coimbatore seat. Annamalai’s fate is at stake. Whereas BJP has fielded former Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan from Chennai South. Apart from these, DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran is in the fray from Chennai Central seat. The people of Thoothukudi are going to give their verdict on DMK’s Kanimozhi Karunanidhi. Congress’s Karti Chidambaram is contesting from Sivagangai seat in Tamil Nadu.
In Assam’s Jorhat seat, BJP has fielded Tapan Gogoi against Gaurav Gogoi, while in Dibrugarh seat, former Assam CM and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is the BJP candidate.
INDIA alliance is hopeful of comeback
In these elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP-led NDA is trying to win more seats, while the constituents of the opposition alliance ‘INDIA’ are hoping to make a comeback after consecutive defeats in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
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