Campaigning ends for 12 LS seats going to polls in phase 1

JAIPUR: The high-decibel campaigning for the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan’s 12 constituencies came to an end on Wednesday with the Bharatiya Janata Party focusing on the guarantees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress attacking the former over issues such as unemployment and inflation.

The general elections in Rajasthan’s 25 Lok Sabha constituencies will be held in two phases — April 19 and 26. In the first phase, 12 of the constituencies — Ganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur, Jaipur Rural, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Nagaur and Dausa — will go to polls.

The remaining 13 constituencies — Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota-Bundi, and Jhalawar-Baran — will take part in the second phase on April 26.

The state has around 50 million voters, of whom 27.6 million are men, 25.4 million are women, and 619 belong to third gender. Around 1.64 million fresh voters will also take part in the elections this time.

According to the data by the Election Commission, 64,608 elderly and specially-abled people have already cast their votes through home voting, which was started on April 5.

Rajasthan, which observed a significant 66.34% polling turnout in 2019, will decide the fate of 131 candidates in 12 seats on Friday. At present, BJP has 24 MPs while the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) holds one seat in Nagaur which the party chief have seen how the Congress has been delaying the ERCP project which Modi has resolved by making us inking a pact between two states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. People will never chose a party that played a heinous political game with drinking water.”

“I appeal to all the people to cast their votes on Friday. It is your responsibility to carefully choose the party for Rajasthan. BJP should win every constituency with over 500,000 votes,” he said.Meanwhile, the senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot, while addressing a rally in Dholpur in support of Bhajan Lal Jatav, said that BJP wants to crush the democracy and the lives of the minority groups. “Why do they want to target 400 seats when the majority mark is only 272 in the Parliament? They need it to amend the Constitution, take away the fundamental rights of the people, and destroy the lives of the poor, Dalits, and other minority categories.”

Assuring a victory for the Congress, he said: “People will never fall in the BJP’s trap. They have seen how the new BJP government in Rajasthan failed to keep any promises rather they closed our schemes which used to benefit the poor. Congress will win with majority in the state.”

Polling in Rajasthan will be held from 7 am to 6 pm in all the 12 constituencies amid tight security arrangements, chief electoral officer Praveen Gupta said. Gupta said that the 50% of the booths have been facilitated with a webcasting system and around 1,300 quick response teams have also been deployed for additional protection . The paramilitary check posts have also set up in over 270 inter-state areas.