Lok Sabha election: Stakes high for BJP in 3rd phase; PM Modi, Amit Shah to cast vote in Gandhinagar
The stakes are high for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it aims to maintain its dominance, having won a majority of these seats in the 2019 elections.
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.
In the third phase, over 1,300 candidates, including around 120 women, are vying for seats in the lower house of the Parliament. The fate of Union ministers Amit Shah, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and Mansukh Mandaviya and former Madhya Pradesh chief ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha) and Digvijaya Singh (Rajgarh) will be decided on May 7.
Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra) are also among the key BJP candidates in this phase.
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With the BJP bagging Surat unopposed, the remaining 25 seats in Gujarat, 11 seats in Maharashtra, 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the remaining 14 of the 28 in Karnataka, seven in Chhattisgarh, five in Bihar, four each in Assam and West Bengal, and all two in Goa will go to polls in the third phase.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah are set to cast their votes in Ahmedabad.
A mouth-watering contest is on the cards in Maharashtra's Baramati where the divided Pawar family will battle it out. NCP founder Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is up against Sunetra Pawar, wife of the veteran leader’s estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Read: Lok Sabha polls phase 3: Key seats, candidates in Uttar Pradesh as focus shifts to Yadav family
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 Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, will try to reclaim the Firozabad Lok Sabha 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, which was represented by his cousin Dharmendra Yadav in 2014.
Read: Lok Sabha Elections 2024 Phase 3: Schools, colleges to remain closed in these constituencies
Former Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai and AIUDF's Badruddin Ajmal are also among the contenders whose fate will be decided on May 7.
As many as 17.24 crore people, including 8.39 crore females, will be eligible to vote and 1.85 lakh polling stations manned by 18.5 lakh officials have been set up.
Voting was completed in 189 seats out of 543 seats in the first two phases. The next four phases will be on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. The counting of votes is on June 4.
