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Eighty-nine Lok Sabha seats across 12 states and 1 Union Territory are set to go to polls on Friday. All eyes are on a slew of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor from the Congress, as well as Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kailash Choudhary, and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who are contesting in what is shaping up to be a fiercely contested battle, particularly in BJP strongholds. The first phase of polling was held on 102 seats on April 19.
Kerala presents a crucial test for the BJP’s ambitious expansion plans. Meanwhile, Maharashtra and Karnataka are being watched keenly due to the emergence of new political dynamics since 2019.
Former BJP ally Uddhav Thackeray now leads the I.N.D.I.A bloc in Maharashtra, while the Shiv Sena, once under his leadership, is now allied with the BJP under Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Additionally, the Nationalist Congress Party, a significant regional player, has split, with Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s faction aligning with the BJP.
In Karnataka, where the grand old party is currently in power, its former ally JD(S) has switched camps to join the saffron camp. The BJP-led NDA holds sway in 27 of the state’s 28 seats, with the I.N.D.I.A bloc hoping to make inroads with its welfare initiatives.
Gautam Buddh Nagar is set for the Lok Sabha election on Friday and around 20,000 personnel will be on polling duty to facilitate the process for more than 26.75 lakh registered voters in the constituency, according to officials. “Of the personnel on poll duty, around 11,000 are from the security, including police, paramilitary, civil force, and homeguards, while about 9,000 are administrative staff and officers who will be deployed at voting booths and stations,” District Election Officer Manish Kumar Verma told PTI.
There are 1,852 booths in the constituency and live web casting will be done on 931 of them, while the remaining will have provisions for either CCTV or videography. The constituency has 164 vulnerable booths and 165 critical booths, he said. “Micro observers will be stationed at vulnerable and critical booths,” Verma said. He added that all booths will have at least four polling officials and paramilitary personnel will be deployed. He said 20 per cent extra EVMs are available in the constituency to replace any EVM that does not function properly.
Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency is spread across assembly segments of Noida, Dadri, Jewar, Khurja and Sikandrabad. Of these, Sikandrabad and Khujra geographically fall in the adjoining Bulandshahr district but are part of Gautam Buddh Nagar constituency.
Gautam Buddh Nagar has 26,75,148 voters across the five assembly segments, including 14,50,795 male, 12,22,234 female and 119 third-gender voters.
In Kerala, where the BJP has never secured a seat, the party is banking on candidates like actor Suresh Gopi, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and Anil Antony, son of veteran Congress leader A K Antony, to make electoral gains. Chandrasekhar has been pitted against three-time Congress MP Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram, while Rahul Gandhi seeks re-election from Wayanad, his current Lok Sabha constituency.
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