NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most prominent candidate among the 904 in the fray for 57 seats across seven states, including Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Chandigarh that go to the polls in the seventh and the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections tomorrow.
Nearly 10 crore voters will cast their franchise across Punjab (13 seats), UP (13), West Bengal (9), Bihar (8), Odisha (6), Himachal (4), Jharkhand (3) and Chandigarh (1). In Odisha, polling will also be conducted simultaneously for the remaining 42 Assembly constituencies.
In 2019, the BJP had won 24 of the 57 seats on its own was the weakest phase for the party while its allies got six. The Congress had bagged eight seats, all from Punjab, while AAP secured its lone seat of Sangrur, from where Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann emerged victorious.
In the current General Election, the BJP-led NDA is locked in a direct contest with the Congress-led INDIA, the stakes being high for both blocs. Apart from PM Modi, who is seeking re-election the third time from Varanasi, the other prominent contestants include Union Minister Anurag Thakur (Hamirpur, HP), and former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad (Patna Sahib, Bihar) and Ram Kripal Yadav (Patliputra, Bihar).
In Punjab, prominent candidates include four-time MP Preneet Kaur (BJP), former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi (Congress), three-time MP Harsimrat Badal (SAD) and Ravneet Singh Bittu (BJP). Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut is fighting her maiden election on the BJP ticket from Mandi. Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib Manish Tewari is fighting from Chandigarh. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee and RJD leader Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti are also in the fray.
Of the 13 Uttar Pradesh constituencies where the polling will be conducted, the BJP had won nine in 2019. The saffron party had won four of the eight seats in the seventh phase in Bihar, all four in Himachal and the Chandigarh seat. The BJP had fared poorly in Punjab, winning only two seats Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur of the 13 on its own. Its former ally SAD had got two seats. The BJP had drawn a blank in the nine seats in West Bengal, won two of the six in Odisha and two of the three in Jharkhand.
During the campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections that ended on May 30, PM Modi held 200-plus rallies. He had alleged that the opposition INDIA bloc would, if voted to power, harm Sanatan Dharma, snatch ‘mangalsutra’ of Hindu women and give away the country’s resources to Muslims. Over 1.09 lakh polling stations have been set up for the last round of polling, which will mark the end of the world’s largest polling exercise that had begun on April 19 and has already completed six phases and 486 Lok Sabha seats. The counting will take place on June 4. Of the 10.06 crore voters, around 5.24 crore are male, 4.82 crore female and 3,574 transgender. The Election Commission has deployed 13 special trains and eight helicopter sorties (for Himachal) for ferrying polling and security personnel.
Of the 57 seats, 41 are general seats, 13 reserved for SC candidates and three for STs. As many as 172 observers (64 general observers, 32 police observers and 76 expenditure observers) have already reached their constituencies days before the poll. A total of 2,707 flying squads, 2,799 static surveillance teams, 1,080 surveillance teams and 560 video-viewing teams are keeping surveillance round the clock to strictly and swiftly deal with any form of inducement of voters.