India Set To Vote In Second Phase Of Lok Sabha Polls, Rahul's Wayanad Among Key Seats In Focus

More than 15.88 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 1.67 lakh polling stations across the country on Friday. (Representational image/Getty)

Voting for 88 seats across 13 states will be held on Friday in the second round of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections on the heels of fierce campaigning, with several big names in the poll fray.

All 20 Lok Sabha seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 in Rajasthan, eight each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, seven in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura, and Jammu and Kashmir will see polling.

Polls in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul have been pushed to phase 3 after the death of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate.

More than 15.88 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 1.67 lakh polling stations across the country on Friday. Around 34.8 lakh first-time voters and 3.28 crore voters in the age group of 20-29 years can vote. A total of 1,202 candidates are in the fray, including 1,098 male, 102 female, and two persons from the third gender.

Notable candidates contesting in the second phase of the elections include Congress’s Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon, Congress’s DK Suresh from Bangalore Rural, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Shobha Karandlaje from Bangalore North, her party colleague Tejasvi Surya from Bangalore South, JD (S)’s HD Kumaraswamy from Mandya, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad, BJP’s Anil Antony from Pathanamthitta, Congress’s Shashi Tharoor and BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram, BJP’s Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, Congress’s Vaibhav Gehlot from Jalore, BJP’s Hema Malini from Mathura and Arun Govil from Meerut.

One of the most keenly-watched contests in this phase will be the three-way clash in Kerala’s Wayanad between incumbent MP Rahul Gandhi from the Congress, Communist Party of India’s Annie Raja, and state BJP president K Surendran.

Another would feature Congress’s incumbent MP Shashi Tharoor and union minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance is eyeing its third consecutive term at the Centre this general election with the slogan of “Abki baar 400 paar”, while parties from the opposition INDIA bloc are banking on their promises of MSP for farmers, cash handouts for women, and more reservations for the backward sections and minorities to stage an upset.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, the BJP-led NDA won 61 of these 88 seats (BJP 52, Shiv Sena 4, JDU 4, and Independent 1). The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance bagged 24 seats (Congress 18, IUML 2, JDS 1, Kerala Congress Mani 1, RSP 1, and Independent 1) while other parties won 3 seats (BSP 1, CPM 1 and NPF 1).

With this phase, polling will conclude in Kerala, Rajasthan, and Tripura. In the first phase on April 19, polling was completed in all seats of Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1).

The Lok Sabha elections are being conducted in seven phases. The first round was held on April 19 for 102 seats across 21 states and union territories, which saw a truncated turnout compared to the 2019 edition. The next phase of polling for 94 seats in 12 states and union territories will be held on May 7.

(With agency inputs)

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