NEW DELHI: As the campaigning for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections ended on Wednesday, the stage is set for voting on April 26 on 88 seats across 13 states. The polling will culminate in all 20 constituencies of Kerala as well as the remaining segments of Rajasthan, Tripura and Manipur.
The second phase will see the fates of some key bigwigs being sealed, the prominent being Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi (Wayanad), Shashi Tharoor (Thiruvananthapuram), Bhupesh Baghel (Rajnandgaon), Vaibhav Gehlot (Jalore) and DK Suresh (Bangalore Rural). Baghel is former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Vaibhav the son of former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and Suresh the brother of Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar.
JD(S) leader and Karnataka ex-CM HD Kumaraswamy leader is fighting from Mandya, BJP MP and veteran actress Hema Malini from Mathura and TV actor Arun Govil, famous for his portrayal of Lord Ram in teleserial ‘Ramayana’, from Meerut.
Several Union Ministers too are in the fray, including Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram, Virendra Kumar from Tikamgarh and Shobha Karandlaje from Bangalore North.
An interesting aspect in this phase is that of the six Madhya Pradesh seats going to the polls, the Congress has won none for almost 20 years. In Damoh, the BJP has been winning consecutively since 33 years. The other five seats of the state that will see polling on Friday are Tikamgarh, Khajuraho, Satna, Hoshangabad and Rewa. The polling in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul seat has been deferred to May 7 in view of the death of the BSP nominee.
Of the total 1,428 candidates who are in the contention during the second phase, Kerala has the highest 500 nominations for 20 parliamentary constituencies, followed by 491 for 14 seats in Karnataka. A minimum of 14 nominations were received for the parliamentary constituency in Tripura. Nanded seat in Maharashtra has maximum 92 candidatures.
Of the 14 Karnataka seats going to the polls on April 26, the BJP had won 12 in 2019. The JD(S) had bagged Hassan and the Congress Bangalore Rural. All the 13 Rajasthan seats that are up for grabs in the second phase went to the BJP in 2019, and so did the six in Madhya Pradesh.
In the politically significant Uttar Pradesh, too, out of the eight seats that will vote in the second phase, only Amroha was won by the BSP, while the remaining seven were won by the BJP. The other key states which will see polling in the second phase include Bihar where five seats are up for grabs, including Purnea from where Pappu Yadav, who had merged his Jan Adhikar Party with the Congress, is contesting as an Independent. Polling will also be held in Maharashtra (eight seats), Assam (five), West Bengal (three) and Chhattisgarh (three). One seat each in Tripura and Manipur will also witness polling in this phase, thus culminating voting in the two states.