Campaigning ends for fourth phase of Lok Sabha polls, 71 seats go to polls on Monday

Campaigning ended Saturday evening for the 71 Lok Sabha seats which go to the polls in the fourth phase with some closely watched constituencies where polling will be held on Monday. 

Some of the key contestants in this phase are Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife, former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son and Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar.

Polling will be held across nine states in this phase. 

Of the 71 seats where polling will be held on April 29, 40 are in the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar Rajasthan and Jharkhand. Polling will be held on 13 seats each in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, 6 in Madhya Pradesh, 5 in Bihar and 3 in Jharkhand. Voting will be cast in 17 seats of Maharashtra, 8 in West Bengal and 6 in Odisha.

The BJP has an uphill task to defend 45 seats of these 71 seats that it had won in 2014. BJP won all 13 in Rajasthan, 12 of 13 in UP, 5 of six in Madhya Pradesh, 3 of five in Bihar, all three in Jharkhand, eight of 17 in Maharashtra and one of the eight in West Bengal.

Rajasthan

Campaigning ended Saturday evening for the 13 Rajasthan seats which go to the polls in the fourth phase with chief minister's son Vaibhav Gehlot, former BJP MLA and now Congressman Manvendra Singh and two Union ministers in the fray.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot's son is contesting his maiden election against Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, where polling will be held on Monday.

Former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh, who switched over from the BJP to the Congress, is from Barmer, a seat once also held by his father.

Polling will take place in Tonk-Sawaimadhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran.

About 2.57 crore people are eligible to vote at 28, 182 polling stations in the 13 constituencies, where 153 candidates are in the fray.

All 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 elections.

Bihar

Campaigning ended on Saturday for the five Bihar Lok Sabha seats of Begusarai, Munger, Ujiyarpur, Samastipur and Darbhanga which go to the polls in the fourth phase on April 29.

The cynosure of all eyes in this phase, however, is the Begusarai seat which will witness an electrifying contest between the political Left and the Right with CPI debutant Kanhaiya Kumar taking on firebrand BJP leader Giriraj Singh.

Lying vacant since the death of sitting MP Bhola Singh a few months ago, Begusarai also has RJDs Tanveer Hassan, who had finished runner up five years ago in the fray.

While the campaign of Singh, a union minister, who has moved from Nawada, was marked by his own hyper-nationalistic speeches which have drawn the ire of opposition parties, it is the Left underdog whose canvassing brought national spotlight on the mofussil town.

West Bengal

Voting is slated at eight constituencies of West Bengal for April 29 election. 

The constituencies which go to polls on Monday are Baharampur, Krishnagar, Ranaghat(SC), Burdwan East(SC), Burdwan-Durgapur, Asansol, Bolpur(SC) and Birbhum.

An electorate of 1,34,56,491 will decide the fate of 68 candidates in these eight constituencies, the EC said.

All the eight seats, which are spread across four districts, will see a four-cornered contest between Trinamool Congress, BJP, Congress and the Left Front.

Jharkhand

Monday's voting will be the first phase in the BJP-ruled state and the fourth in the country. Addressing poll rallies in Jharkhand this week, a host of top BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah appealed to the people to re-elect the NDA to take forward the developmental works and protect the country's security.

No prominent national level leaders of opposition parties campaigned in the three seats - Lohardaga (ST), Chatra and Palamu (SC) - in the run up to the elections, campaigning for which ended at 4 PM.

Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jiten Ram Manjhi, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren of the JMM addressed election meetings in the seats held by the BJP.

Altogether 45,26,693 voters will be eligible to exercise their franchise in this phase while the number of candidates is 59 including Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan Bhagat.

As there are some Naxal pockets in Palamu and Chatra, borders with Bihar have been sealed and adequate security arrangements have been made for the polling to be held between 7 am and 4 pm on April 29, a government official said.

The BJP had won 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2014, while the JMM secured two.

Maharashtra

Campaigning for the fourth and final phase of elections for 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra, including the Mumbai region, ended Saturday.

Prominent candidates in the fray are Union minister Subhash Bhamre (Dhule) of BJP, Urmila Matondkar (Mumbai North), Priya Dutt (Mumbai North Central) and Milind Deora (Mumbai South) of the Congress, and NCP chief Sharad Pawar's grandnephew Parth Pawar, who is fighting his maiden contest from Maval seat.

The constituencies up for grabs include Nandurbar, Dhule, Dindori, Nashik in North Maharashtra, Palghar, Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Thane, Mumbai North, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North Central, Mumbai North East, Mumbai South and Mumbai South Central in the Mumbai region, Maval and Shirur in Pune district, and Shirdi in Ahmednagar district.

A total of 33,314 polling stations are set up across these constituencies.

Out of 3,11,92,823 eligible voters, 1,66,31,707 are men and 1,45,59,698 women. The number of third gender voters is 1418.

In 2014 general elections, the BJP had won eight seats and its alliance partner Shiv Sena nine seats out of the total 17 seats that will vote in the fourth phase Monday.

The BJP later improved its tally by winning the bypoll to Palghar constituency in 2018. The new MP Rajendra Gavit is contesting on Shiv Sena ticket this time.

Uttar Pradesh 

Campaigning came to an end Saturday evening for the 13 fourth-phase Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav too spent much of the day in Kannauj, the seat from where his wife Dimple Yadav is seeking re-election.

In 2014, the BJP won 12 of these 13 seats in the state. Only Kannauj, won by the Samajwadi Party, defied the Modi wave that year among them.

The other constituencies where elections will be held on April 29 are Shahjahanpur (SC), Kheri, Hardoi (SC), Mishrikh (SC), Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah (SC), Kanpur, Akbarpur, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi and Hamirpur.

The Congress has a good presence in at least three of the constituencies -- Unnao (Annu Tandon), Farrukhabad (Salman Khurshid) and Kanpur (Sriprakash Jaiswal).

Odisha

High decibel campaign on Saturday evening for six Lok Sabha and 41 assembly seats of Odisha where polling will be held in the fourth phase on April 29.

Polling in Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur Lok Sabha seats and 41 assembly segments coming under these six constituencies will be held on Monday.

This will be the final phase of polling in Odisha, except for Patkura assembly seat where voting is slated to be held on May 19 following the death of the BJD candidate.

The fourth phase polling will decide the electoral fortune of 388 candidates - 52 in Lok Sabha seats and 336 in 41 assembly constituencies.

The state has 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats. 

Madhya Pradesh

The political fate of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, his son Nakul and state BJP president Rakesh Singh will be sealed in EVMs Monday when six Lok Sabha seats go to polls, alongside one assembly constituency, where bypoll will be held.

Besides, Congress legal cell head Vivek Tankha and former leader of opposition in MP assembly Ajay Singh (Congress leader) are also in the fray in the first phase of pollings in the state on April 29. 

Kamal Nath did not contest the state elections in 2018. But after the Congress emerged as the single largest party, he became the chief minister of the state. As per rules, he needs to get elected to the assembly within six months of assuming office.

Six seats -- Sidhi, Shahdol, Jabalpur, Mandla, Balaghat and Chhindwara -- will go to polls during the first phase on April 29 in Madhya Pradesh. While for the state elections, bypoll will be held in Chhindwara assembly constituency.

Jammu and Kashmir

The election campaign in Kulgam district, which is part of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency going to polls in three phases, ended Saturday as nearly 3.45 lakh voters will register their choice of the representative on Monday.

"The election campaigning in Kulgam district came to an end this (Saturday) evening, but will continue in Pulwama and Shopian districts which are also part of the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency," an election official said.

He said the electioneering in the district remained by and large peaceful.

Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency is spread over four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama with 16 assembly segments. The Lok Sabha polls to this constituency are being held in three phases due to security reasons.

Anantnag district went to polls on 23rd April, while voting in Kulgam district will be on 29th April and Pulwama and Shopian districts will go to polls on 6 May.