Phase 3 voting in 12 states, Union Territories today, big-ticket contests in focus

Phase 3 voting in 12 states, Union Territories today, big-ticket contests in focus

Voting for Phase 3 of Lok Sabha elections will be held on Tuesday in 10 states and two Union Territories. Several big names are in the fray in this phase, including Home Minister Amit Shah, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Supriya Sule, and Samajwadi Party leader Dimple Yadav.Â

Over 17 crore voters will exercise their franchise across 93 constituencies, of which 72 are general seats, 10 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 11 for Scheduled Tribes.

Here are the top 10 things to know about Phase 3 of Lok Sabha elections:

• Point #

  In Phase 3, voting will take place on 93 seats in Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Goa (2), Gujarat (26), Karnataka (14), Madhya Pradesh (8), Maharashtra (11), Uttar Pradesh (10), West Bengal (4), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2).

• Point #

  A total of 1,331 candidates are in the fray in this phase. The BJP has fielded a maximum of 81 candidates, followed by the Congress with 67.

• Point #

  In Phase 3 of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 72 out of 94 seats, followed by the Congress and Shiv Sena with 4 seats each, Janata Dal (United) and Nationalist Congress party with 3 seats each, Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress with 2 seats each, and Lok Janshakti Party with 1 seat. The remaining two seats went to Independents.

• Point #

  Key candidates in Phase 3 include BJP’s Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha, Purushottam Rupala from Rajkot, Jagadish Shettar from Belgaum, Basavaraj Bommai from Haveri BY Raghavendra from Shivamogga.Â

• Point #

  From the Opposition, Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav is in fray from Mainpuri, Congress’s Digvijaya Singh from Rajgarh, Geetha Shivarajkumar from Shivamogga, and Priyanka Jarikholi from Chikkodi.

• Point #

  The Baramati seat in Maharashtra will witness a big ticket contest as Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader and sitting MP Supriya Sule will take on Sunetra Pawar of the NCP faction headed by her estranged cousin Ajit Pawar.Â

  Ajit Pawar, who engineered the split in the NCP and now holds the party name and symbol, has fielded his wife Sunetra from Baramati — a Pawar family bastion which was long represented by his uncle Sharad Pawar.

• Point #

  As per the earlier schedule, election was to be held on 94 constituencies in the third phase. However, elections were cancelled in Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat after BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal won uncontested as all his opponents either withdrew their names or their candidature was cancelled.

• Point #

  Besides Surat, election on the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir was deferred to May 25, which is the Phase 6 of polling. This came after the urged the Election Commission to postpone the polls, reasoning that “logistic, communication, and natural barrier of connectivity” were becoming a “hindrance in campaigning”.

• Point #

  Voting will also be held on Betul Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh, which was originally supposed to go to polls in the Phase 2 on April 26. The polling was postponed following the death of Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Ashok Bhalavi.

• Point #

  The next phase of the seven-phase election is due on May 13. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.

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