Voters seal the fate of 49 LS seats in 5th phase poll
Polling in fifth phase covered 49 seats in six states - Bihar (5), Jharkhand (3), Maharashtra (13), Odisha (5), UP (14), West Bengal (7) and two UTS; Bollywood stars come in droves to cast ballot
Indians voted on Monday in the fifth phase of mammoth general elections, with film actors and sports celebrities among the thousands who turned out early in a bid to avoid scorching afternoon heat in the financial hub of Mumbai.
Monday’s phase has the fewest constituencies going to the polls, with 89.5 million voters in 49 seats.
Polling in the fifth phase covered 49 seats in six states - Bihar (5), Jharkhand (3), Maharashtra (13), Odisha (5), UP (14), West Bengal (7) and two Union Territories - Jammu and Kashmir (1) and Ladakh (1). Voting for 35 seats of the Odisha Assembly was also held in the state’s second phase of simultaneous polling.
Polling concluded in the seven Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal that went to the polls in the fifth phase on Monday with a high voter turnout at all the seats.
As per the provisional figures released by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), 73 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the state till 5:00 pm, which was substantially higher than the national average of 47.53 per cent (provisional figures) till that time.
Amid reports of violence and booth-capturing, the election Commission registered 45.33 per cent polling till 3 P.M. on the five seats that went to polls in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar on Monday.
A maximum of 49.99 per cent of polling was registered in Muzaffarpur while 45.19 per cent of polling happened in the Sitamarhi Lok Sabha constituency.
High-profile candidates in the fray included trade minister Piyush Goyal, standing from one of six seats in Mumbai, and defence minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, both cities where there has been poor voter turnout in the past.
Two boroughs of the opposition Congress party’s Nehru-gandhi dynasty also went to the polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Family scion Rahul Gandhi is contesting the seat of Raebareli, in addition to Wayanad in the south, which has already voted.
Smriti Irani, minister for women and child development, is contesting from Amethi, where she defeated Rahul in 2019.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state Omar Abdullah is contesting from Baramulla,
The Bollywood stars came in droves - from co-stars (Ranbir Kapoor and Bobby Deol) to star couples (Saif-kareena, Dharmendra-hema Malini, Ranveer-deepika), from veterans (Gulzar, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar) to the Gen Next (Ananya Panday, Shraddha Kapoor), to grown-up children with their famous parents (Mahesh and Pooja Bhatt, Hema Malini and Esha Deol, Jeetendra and Ektaa Kapoor, Rakesh and Hrithik Roshan, David and Varun Dhawan).
Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan braved Mumbai’s searing sun and cast his vote on Monday afternoon along with his wife Jaya, who’s also a Rajya Sabha MP.
His daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has returned from the Cannes Film Festival, also cast her vote at the same polling station, although she arrived separately to fulfil her civic duty.
Shah Rukh Khan, along with his wife Gauri Khan, elder son Aryan Khan and his manager Pooja Dadlani cast their vote on Monday in Mumbai for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
N.chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, a sprawling Indian conglomerate with interests ranging from cars and software to salt and tea, cast his ballot at a polling station in an upper-class Mumbai neighbourhood.
Asia’s richest man, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, also voted at the same polling station, accompanied by his wife, son, and a media scrum, posing to show his inkstained finger.
Anand Mahindra, chairman of the eponymous automaker, told news agency PTI after voting: “If you look at the world around us, there is so much uncertainty, there is such instability, there’s terror, there’s war.
“And we are in the middle of a stable democracy where we get a chance to vote peacefully, to decide what kind of government we want. It’s a blessing.”
The next and penultimate phase, comprising 58 seats, is slated to be held on May 25, with Haryana and Delhi joining in for a single-phase polling.