India votes from today; 102 seats, 16 cr. voters in Phase 1
Voting will be held for all 39 Lok Sabha seats of T.N. as well as several in Rajasthan, western U.P., M.P.; NDA looks for a third straight term, while INDIA bloc is hoping to upstage the ruling alliance
Over 16 crore voters will exercise their franchise on Friday as the 2024 general election, the world’s biggest exercise in democracy, kicks o with 102 Lok Sabha constituencies going to the polls in the rst phase.
While the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is looking for a third straight term in oce, after successes in the 2014 and 2019 elections, the Opposition Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is hoping to stop the ruling alliance in its tracks.
The BJP is seeking a vote for a Viksit Bharat (developed India) by highlighting its 10-year rule under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the campaign of the Congress — the largest party in the INDIA bloc — has revolved around issues of unemployment, ination, misuse of Central agencies and threats to the democratic and secular fabric of the country.
The rst of the seven phases of the election, which will culminate on June 1, will also see the highest number of constituencies going to the polls.
All 39 Lok Sabha seats of Tamil Nadu and ve seats of Uttarakhand, 12 seats in Rajasthan, eight crucial seats in western Uttar Pradesh, and six seats in Madhya Pradesh are among those going to the polls on Friday.
A total of 1,625 candidates — 1,491 men and 134 women — are in the fray.
Voting will also be held in ethnic violence-hit Manipur and Naxal-aected Bastar in Chhattisgarh. In the Inner Manipur seat, polling will be held on Friday as well as on April 26, during the second phase.
Assembly polls
Polling will also be held for 92 Assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, where Assembly elections are being held.
Some of the high-prole BJP candidates whose fates would be sealed on Friday are Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Bhupender Yadav and Sanjeev Balyan, and Uttar Pradesh leader Jitin Prasada. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) A. Raja, Dayanidhi Maran and K. Kanimozhi, and Gaurav Gogoi of the Congress are other heavyweights in the fray.
The counting of votes will be held on June 4. Overall, 16.63 crore voters, including 8.4 crore male, 8.23 crore female and 11,371 third-gender electors, would exercise their franchise on Friday. Around 35.67 lakh rst-time voters are registered to cast their votes.
Over 14.14 lakh voters who are above 85 years of age and 13.89 lakh voters with disabilities have been provided the option to vote from the comfort of their homes.
The Election Commission (EC) said that 1.87 lakh polling stations have been set up and 41 helicopters, 84 special trains and nearly 1 lakh vehicles have been deployed to ferry polling and security personnel.
Voting will begin at 7 a.m. and end at 6 p.m., though the closure of poll timings diers in some seats, the EC said.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu reviewed election preparations.
On the eve of the elections, President Droupadi Murmu appealed to voters, especially rst-time electors, to enthusiastically participate in this “festival of democracy”.
Webcasting will be done in more than 50% of the polling stations along with deployment of micro-observers in all polling stations. A total of 361 observers have reached their constituencies. Besides, 4,627 Flying Squads, 5,208 Statistics Surveillance Teams, 2,028 Video Surveillance Teams and 1,255 Video Viewing Teams are engaged in surveillance round the clock to strictly and swiftly deal with any form of inducement of voters.