India General Elections 2024 highlights: 61.45% approximate voter turnout recorded today till 8 pm

When voting closes on Tuesday, more than half of India’s 543 Lok Sabha seats – 282 to be exact – would have gone to the polls, marking a crucial turn in the six-week-long general elections that began last month. At stake will be all 26 seats in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stronghold of Gujarat, as well as 14 seats in the Congress-ruled Karnataka and 11 in Maharashtra, where splintering regional forces have rendered the elections unpredictable. Read more

Fourteen Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka are set to go for polls during the third phase of Lok Sabha Elections scheduled today. With this, polling will be wrapped up at all 28 Parliament seats of the southern state. The constituencies in south Karnataka, including Bengaluru, went for polls during the second phase on April 26. Read more

Preparations are underway for the third phase of Lok Sabha polls in 93 seats across 11 states and UT's. 

The high-octane campaign for the third phase of Lok Sabha elections that saw the BJP-led NDA and the INDIA bloc fiercely attacking each other on issues like reservations and sexual harassment charges against JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna concluded on Sunday evening.

Hundreds of women were tortured by Trinamool Congress “goons” “because of their religious background” at Bengal’s Sandeshkhali, Union home minister Amit Shah alleged at a Lok Sabha campaign rally in the state on Monday, days after the ruling party cited a viral video clip purportedly showing a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker claiming that party leader Suvendu Adhikari had hatched the “Sandeshkhali conspiracy.” “TMC’s goons have tortured our sisters at Sandeshkhali on the basis of religion. Mamata Banerjee did not want a probe but the (Calcutta) high court ordered an inquiry by Central Bureau of Investigation,” Shah said on Monday at a BJP rally at Burdwan-Durgapur constituency in West Burdwan district. In the spy cam video, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified by HT, Gangadhar Kayal, BJP’s Sandeshkhali- 2 community block unit president, could be heard saying that some women were paid to lodge false complaints against local TMC leaders Sheikh Shahjahan, Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar who are now in judicial custody.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is eyeing a resounding victory in the Gujarat Lok Sabha elections, as the state goes to election in the third phase of voting on May 7. With a strong foothold in the region, the ruling party is aiming to sweep all the parliamentary constituencies, leaving no room for its political rivals. 

The Congress and the AAP alliance in the state is however looking to break BJP’s third time clean sweep of 26 seats in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. The BJP's campaign has been led by Prime Minister Modi who held six rallies on May 1 and May 2. 

The BJP has replaced over a dozen sitting MPs, including Ministers Darshna Jordosh and Mahendra Munjapara, for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat. Also, Cabinet Ministers Mansukh Mandaviya and Parshottam Rupala, whose Rajya Sabha terms end in April, have secured spots on the candidate list.

Just a few hours before the polling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would cast his vote in Ahmedabad under the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency and urged voters to come out and cast their franchise in "record numbers." "After today's exceptional programmes in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, reached Gujarat. In the morning tomorrow on May 7. I will be voting in Ahmedabad. I urge all those who are to vote tomorrow to do so in record numbers as well," posted PM Modi on X.

The third phase is also significant for the late Mulayam Singh Yadav's family as three of its members, including Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav, are in the fray. Akshay Yadav, son of senior party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, will try to reclaim the Firozabad seat, which he had won in 2014. Aditya Yadav, the son of SP national general secretary Shivpal Yadav, is making his electoral debut from the Budaun Lok Sabha seat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will cast his vote at Nishan Higher Secondary School in Ahmedabad in the third phase of Lok Sabha polls today. Preparations for polling arrangements are underway at the school which has been designated as a polling booth. Earlier, a 'Run for Vote' marathon was organised in Gujarat's Ahmedabad on Sunday morning to create awareness among youth to cast their votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a rainfall alert in northeastern states and West Bengal, expected to give a much-needed respite to the voters amid the scorching heat. Read more

Former chief minister and BJP's candidate from Gadag-Haveri Lok Sabha constituency Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday expressed confidence in his party's victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, saying that the people of all sections of society are supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, given his performance in the last ten years.

Voting for the third of seven-phase 2024 India elections will begin at 7 am on Tuesday in 93 constituencies across 11 states and Union Territories. The states and union territories where the elections will be held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.

From Union ministers Amit Shah, Pralhad Joshi, and Jyotiraditya Scindia to Congress stalwart Digvijaya Singh, to NCP’s (Sharad Pawar faction) Supriya Sule and Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav, the third of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections 2024 on Tuesday will see these key candidates lock horns with their opponents. Read more

Voting will be held in 93 constituencies across 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections. The stakes are particularly high for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had won an overwhelming majority of these seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leading the NDA to a brute majority. Read more