12 Lok Sabha seats to decide fate of 131 candidates today
JAIPUR: At least 25 million voters of the 12 out of 25 parliamentary constituencies of northern and eastern Rajasthan will exercise their franchise for the crucial Lok Sabha elections on Friday. Polling in the state will be held in two phases, on April 19 and 26.
In the first phase, constituencies such as Ganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur, Jaipur Rural, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Nagaur and Dausa will decide the fate of 131 candidates at 23,651 polling stations.
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 Election Commission.
According to the data, 64,608 elderly and specially-abled people have already cast their votes through home voting which started on April 5.
Rajasthan had recorded 66.34% polling turnout in 2019.
At present, BJP has 24 MPs while the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) holds one seat in Nagaur which the party chief Hanuman Beniwal had contested in an alliance with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. He walked out of the alliance in 2020 over the now repelled farm laws.
The contest will be majorly between the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and its alliance partners under INDIA bloc. While the BJP is hoping to make a hat trick by wining over all 25 seats for the consecutive third time in the state, the latter has also set the bar high of bagging the majority mark.
The BJP had also won the state assembly elections held last December by a complete majority. While the BJP is contesting the election alone from all the 25 seats in the state, the Congress has declared alliance with the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], and Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) as part of the INDIA bloc in three seats of Nagaur, Sikar, and B ans war a Dun ga rp ur respectively.
The former two seats will also go to the polls on Friday during the first phase.
The high-decibel campaign by the parties for the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan’s 12 constituencies came to an end on Wednesday with the BJP focusing on the guarantees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress attacking the former over issues such as unemployment and inflation.
During the first phase of polling, the state witnessed five visits from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who campaigned in Churu, Dausa, Jaipur Rural, Barmer, and Ajmer — while three from his colleague and Union home minister Amit Shah in Alwar, Sikar, and Jaipur.
The party’s national president Jagat Prakash Nadda, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman along with the chief ministers of three BJP-led states Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh also visited Rajasthan frequently in the last few days.
To give a boost to the Congress campaign, the party’s senior leader Rahul Gandhi held two rallies in Anupgarh and Falodi. Ahead of the code of conduct, he also visited Dholpur and Banswara twice during the party’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra last March.
Meanwhile, the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge visited the state twice in Chittorgarh and Jaipur while the general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited four times in Jaipur, Jalore, Alwar, and Dausa.
The Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, accompanied by Kharge and Priyanka, also visited in Jaipur on April 9, a day after the party launched its manifesto in Delhi.
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.
Appealing for a peaceful election, the Rajasthan director general of police (DGP) Utkal Ranjan Sahoo on Thursday said at least 75,000 police personnel will be deployed across the 12 constituencies during the first phase.
“A total of 175 companies of central arm forces along with 18,400 homeguards, and 1,600 jawans have already been sent to their concerned constituencies. To ensure a violence-free election, extra security personnel have also been deployed in sensitive booths. A police mobile party led by a sector police officer will also be active in every 10 booths,” said the DGP.
He said that five police personnel and five home guards will also be deployed on every check post at the border areas.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan recorded the highest seizures among all states and Union territories in India, with a total of ₹778 crore, followed by Gujarat at ₹605 crores, and Tamil Nadu with ₹460 crore.
CEO Gupta said: “To ensure free, fair, and peaceful conduct of assembly elections, 6,287 micro observers and 6,247 sector officers have been appointed. The micro observers and sector officer will immediately resolve any kind of problem at the booths by continuously coordinating with the polling parties”.
One additional electronic voting machine (EVM) will also be given to all sector officers who will take action for repair and replacement if any EVM-related defect is reported, said the Election Commission.
The rest of the 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.