PM Modi and Dwelling Minister Amit Shah (FILE).
New Delhi:
The third part of the 2024 Lok Sabha election begins this morning with voting for 93 seats throughout 12 states and union territories, together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence state of Gujarat and the Hindi heartland belt of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh. Assam, Bengal, Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, and the UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, and Jammu and Kashmir, full the checklist for this part.
Voting has been known as off in south Gujarat’s Surat after the Congress’ choose, Nilesh Kumbhani, was rejected over alleged discrepancies within the signatures of proposers. Mr Kumbhani later went lacking for some time amid rumours he was set to hitch the ruling BJP.
The BJP’s Mukesh Dalal was declared elected by default – amid a still-simmering storm – after eight different candidates, together with seven independents, withdrew from the race.
Surat, subsequently, turned the primary seat to be declared (and received by the BJP) on this election. Since then, comparable drama in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore has made it BJP 2 – 0 Congress.
Of the 93 seats on this part for which opposition candidates stay, 25 (not together with Surat) are from Gujarat. The BJP received all 26 in 2019. 14 of Karnataka’s 28 seats will vote on this part and the BJP additionally received all of them, because it did the 9 of Madhya Pradesh’s 29 seats that vote in the present day. Actually, the saffron get together received a staggering 80 of those 93 seats final time.
Retaining most, if not all, of those seats will likely be key for the BJP’s ‘abki baar, 400 paar’ objective.
The opposition INDIA bloc, led by the Congress, received solely 11 of those seats final time, with the opposite two – Assam and Dadra and Nagar Haveli – electing impartial lawmakers.
Among the many huge names standing on this part are Union Dwelling Minister Amit Shah and his cupboard colleagues Jyotiraditya Scindia (Civil Aviation) and Pralhad Joshi (Parliamentary Affairs), and Purushottam Rupala, who’s the junior Dairy and Fisheries Minister.
Mr Shah will defend his Gandhinagar seat in Gujarat. The seat was the bastion of former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, who held it from 1998 until 2019. The Congress hasn’t received the Gujarat capital since GI Patel’s win approach again in 1984.
Mr Scindia will look to win again (and defend) his household stronghold of Guna in Madhya Pradesh. He held the seat for 12 years as a member of the Congress however misplaced it to the BJP’s Krishna Pal Yadav within the 2019 election, a 12 months earlier than he jumped ship to the saffron get together.
Mr Joshi will look to win his Dharwad seat in Karnataka for a fourth consecutive time. The 14 Karnataka seats voting in the present day are from the BJP’s strongholds within the northern a part of the southern state. Two different important seats from these 14 are Shimoga and Haveri.
Shimoga is the household turf of former Chief Minister BS Yedyiyurappa. The BJP has fielded his son and sitting MP BY Raghavendra, which upset senior chief KS Eshwarappa, who will contest as an impartial after being expelled from the get together. The opposite seat – Haveri – will see one other former Karnataka Chief Minister – Basavaraj Bommai – contesting.
Mr Rupala, in the meantime, is contesting the Rajkot seat in Gujarat, one other BJP bastion.
Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan – who’s extensively seen as having engineered the BJP’s win within the November state election however was handed over for one more time period within the high submit – can be contesting. He stands from his household seat of Vidisha.
From the opposition’s ranks, one other former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Congress chief Digvijaya Singh, will contest the Rajgarh seat. This was received by the BJP prior to now two elections, however Mr Singh received this seat twice earlier than that – in 1984 and 1991.
Nationalist Congress Celebration – Sharadchandra Pawar chief Supriya Sule, who’s get together patriarch Sharad Pawar’s daughter – will stand from the celebrated Baramati seat, which voted for her father six occasions beforehand and made her an MP in 2009, 2014, and 2019.
The large headline right here is Ms Sule’s contest in opposition to Sunetra Pawar, the spouse of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. Mr Pawar – Sharad Pawar’s nephew and Supriya Sule’s cousin – led a rebel throughout the previously undivided NCP, siding with the BJP and triggering a messy cut up.
Within the persevering with battle to go one-up on his uncle, Ajit Pawar has his eye set on Baramati.
The BJP is determined to win too; victory right here will likely be a press release of intent in opposition to the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, of which Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction is part. It would additionally enhance the ‘mission 45’ objective, which is to win 45 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats.
Of the ten Uttar Pradesh seats polling on this spherical, one is Mainpuri, which is a household stronghold of Samajwadi Celebration boss Akhilesh Yadav. Mr Yadav’s spouse, Dimple Yadav, is the sitting MP after successful a 2022 bypoll because of the dying of SP patriarch Mulayam Yadav.
This part is a key one for the Yadav household, with Akshay Yadav (Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin) and Aditya Yadav (Shivpal Yadav’s son) contesting Firozabad and Budaun, respectively.
Mainpuri is not the one huge seat from UP on this part; Hathras, a reserved seat in an space that has seen stunning crimes in opposition to girls prior to now a number of years, and Agra are additionally voting. Each are BJP strongholds. Fatehpur Sikri – a BJP seat since 2009 – can be voting.
Eleven of Maharashtra’s 48 seats – essentially the most of any state after UP’s 80 – vote in the present day, together with, in fact, Baramati. The opposite 10 embody the reserved seats of Latur and Solapur, in addition to Sangli and Kolhapur.
Excessive-profile seats from different states embody Murshidabad and Jangipur from Bengal, each of which have been received by the ruling Trinamool. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s get together is, on paper, a part of the Congress-led INDIA bloc, however it’s contesting all 42 seats in opposition to each its allies and the BJP, which has been steadily gaining floor within the japanese state.
From Bengal, Maldaha Uttar and Dakshin are additionally voting in the present day. These are held by the BJP and Congress. The latter was solely of two seats the Congress received within the 2019 election.
In Bihar – which was swept by the BJP and its allies, the ruling JDU and the LJP, within the final election – there are 5 seats voting. All 5 have been claimed by the BJP-led NDA final time.
Chhattisgarh’s seven remaining seats additionally vote in the present day, as do each South and North Goa (the BJP’s Pallavi Dempo stands from the previous) and the lone seat from Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
There are nonetheless 4 phases of the overall election to come back, with the fourth on Could 13, fifth on Could 20, sixth on Could 25, and seventh on June 1. The outcomes will likely be declared on June 4.
