ENDS{ PHASE 2
even more. Voters want NDA’S good governance. Youth and women voters are powering the strong NDA support,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X.
The next five phases will take place over the next month, with the results on June 4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a historic third consecutive term, hoping to become only the second PM after Jawaharlal Nehru to achieve this feat. The Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is aiming to use a mix of economic agenda and social redistribution promise to damage the Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral coalition.
“To all my dear citizens, from 89 Constituencies in 13 States and UTS, do not get swayed by any diversionary tactics and lies. Always make your vote count,” Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said. Turnout has been a creeping concern since the general elections first kicked off on April 19 with experts underlining voter apathy and the searing summer as possible reasons for the milderthan-usual turnout.
On the electoral rolls on Friday were 158.8 million voters, including 3.5 million first-time ones and 32.8 million people between the ages of 20 and 29. On April 19, 102 seats went to polls in the first phase (including some parts of the Outer Manipur constituency, where the remaining parts voted on Friday).
To be sure, the polls were originally slated for 89 seats, but the death of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Ashok Bhalavi in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul, led to ECI adjourning the election.
Six of the 88 seats — five in Assam and one in Jammu — were redrawn after a delimitation exercise in 2023. The 82 others saw a turnout of 69.6% in 2019. Six seats of these 88 seats are reserved for scheduled tribes, nine are reserved for scheduled castes.
Of these seats, 56 were held by the NDA, of which 47 were with the BJP. Twenty-three were held by INDIA, of which 17 were with the Congress.
Focus was on the turnout in the 14 seats of Karnataka, where the ruling Congress is hoping to dent the BJP’S impressive record of winning 25 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats five years ago. The provisional turnout stood at 68.2%, compared to 68.9% in 2019. In the four seats of capital Bengaluru, the turnout averaged at 56.6%, compared to 56.9% in 2019.
Voting was also held in eight seats in Uttar Pradesh, including the national capital region cities of Noida and Ghaziabad. Turnout at the Gautam Buddha Nagar seat was 53.21% as against 60.5% in 2019, while the turnout in Ghaziabad was 49.65% as against 55.86% in 2019.