Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Voting is taking place today for the third phase of Lok Sabha elections. Voting has started from 7 am on a total of 93 Lok Sabha seats including Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s Gandhinagar seat and Jyotiraditya Scindia’s Guna. Today BJP has a major stake in 11 states and union territories. In the last elections, the saffron party had won most of the seats in Gujarat, Karnataka, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. There are 1300 candidates in the fray for 93 seats, of which 120 are women. The number of voters is more than 11 crores. PM Modi and Amit Shah will vote today. Understand the whole thing in 12 points…
1. Voting is also being held today on the Lok Sabha seats of Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Purushottam Rupala (Rajkot), Prahlad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
2. Modi-Shah will also vote: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will vote at a polling booth in R.p in Ahmedabad city. Yes, PM will cast his vote at Nishan Higher Secondary School in Ahmedabad. He reached Ahmedabad late at night. Home Minister Amit Shah will also vote in Gandhinagar.
3. Among the seats where elections have been held in this phase, 25 are from Gujarat, 14 from Karnataka, 11 from Maharashtra, 10 from Uttar Pradesh, 9 from Madhya Pradesh, seven from Chhattisgarh, five from Bihar, four each from West Bengal and Assam. Seats included. Goa. Consists of two seats.
4. At least 17.24 crore people, including 8.39 crore women, are eligible to vote. 18.5 lakh personnel have been deployed at 1.85 lakh polling stations. Voting is being held today on 9 seats in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu (2 seats) and Madhya Pradesh. This also includes Betul Lok Sabha seat of MP, where the elections were postponed.
5. UP Elections: Voting is taking place in Sambhal, Hathras, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Badanyu, Amla and Bareilly parliamentary seats of Uttar Pradesh. In this phase, 100 candidates are in the fray in UP, while 1.88 crore voters will be able to vote.
6. Dimple Yadav, wife of SP President Alikhesh Yadav, is trying to retain her hold on the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Akshay Yadav, son of senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, is contesting from Firozabad seat. Aditya Yadav, son of SP national general secretary Shivpal Yadav, is entering electoral politics from Badayu Lok Sabha seat, which was previously represented by his cousin Dharmendra Yadav, in 2024. Rajveer Singh, son of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and veteran BJP leader Kalyan Singh, is hoping to score a ‘hat-trick’ from Etah in the third phase of elections.
7. Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha Elections: Today the political future of three big stalwarts of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijay Singh will be decided. The 9 seats in Madhya Pradesh include Morena, Bhind (SC), Gwalior, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal, Rajgarh and Betul (ST). Veteran BJP leader and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is contesting elections from Vidisha seat after almost 17 years, which he has represented in the Lok Sabha several times before. Shivraj is contesting from Congress candidate Pratap Bhanu Sharma. Veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh (77), a two-time BJP MP, is contesting from Rodmal Nagar in Rajgarh seat. The votes of the Yadav community in Guna seat could tilt the electoral balance and here Scindia is facing competition from Congress’s Yadvendra Singh Yadav.
8. In Gujarat, Congress has fielded four sitting and eight former MLAs and is contesting the elections in alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party. Congress won 24 seats (including Surat), while AAP was given Bhavnagar and Bharuch. AAP has fielded sitting MLA Chaitra Vasava from Bharuch seat and Umesh Makwana from Bhavnagar seat. Elections are to be held on 11 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra, including Baramati seat, where Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is contesting from Sunetra Pawar (wife of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar).
9. Bihar Lok Sabha Elections: A total of 54 candidates are in the fray for five Lok Sabha seats. Voting is going on in Arsia, Supaul, Janjarpur, Maghepura and Khagaria seats of Bihar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told Congress in this letter that it will not hand over the quota of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes to Muslims. On the other hand, Congress and its allies have accused BJP of tampering with the Constitution and trying to end reservation. The main opposition Congress has promised to remove the 50 per cent cap on reservation and asked the BJP to clarify its stand on the issue.
