As many as 624 candidates are in the fray in this round of voting being held in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur districts.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attended a key BJP meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday as party leaders discussed the ongoing campaign for the state assembly polls ahead of the announcement of its candidates for the initial phases in a few days.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
Polling for the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha election will be held on Saturday, May 25, 2024.
According to an official release, the voting percentage is likely to go up when reports from all polling stations are obtained, as polling was scheduled until 6 pm in many constituencies.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh is reviving its 'brotherhood committees', a strategy used successfully in the 2007 elections, to bolster its support among Other Backward Castes (OBCs) ahead of the 2027 state assembly elections. These committees, to be formed in all 403 constituencies, aim to connect with 100 people from OBC communities in each village, acting as ambassadors of the party at the booth level. The BSP sees these committees as a counter to the Samajwadi Party's PDA pitch and a means to consolidate its scattered rural vote bank. The party is also highlighting the 'anti-Dalit' and 'anti-OBC' tactics of the Congress, BJP and SP, hoping to capitalize on perceived grievances and reposition itself as a champion of marginalized communities.
'Are elections still fair in India, or are we all witness to a macabre style of 'selection' of lawmakers? The jury will be out on this for a long time because there is no definitive evidence on either contention, at least as yet,' notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author, Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
During the presser, Gandhi showed a picture of a woman who appears on the voter list 22 times in 10 booths in the Rai assembly constituency, and said this shows that this was a 'centralised operation'.
Of the 87.54 crore electors in the first six phases of the Lok Sabha polls, as many as 57.77 crore voters turned up at the polling stations to cast their votes.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
Polling across 55 assembly constituencies assembly in nine districts got off to sluggish start at 7 am due to the cold and fog at several places.
Gandhi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the "champion of corruption".
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Saharanpur recorded a turnout of 71.13 per cent, Bijnor 65.91, Moradabad 67.26, Sambhal 62.87, Rampur 64.26, Amroha 71.98, Budaun 59.24, Bareilly 61.67 and Shahjahanpur 59.34 per cent, a statement issued by the election office said in Lucknow on Tuesday.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
The districts where polling was held were Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur.
The turnout for these seats was 57.92 per cent in the last assembly polls in 2012.
Priyanka said 40 per cent of the Congress candidates are women and another 40 percent are youth and by doing so the party is making a new and historic beginning.
The poll authority noted that in the past these cities have "suffered" from urban apathy in voting.
The male-female turnout gap was wide in Bihar and Jharkhand. While in Bihar, the male turnout was 52.42 percent, the female turnout was 61.58 percent.
Among the fatalities recorded on Friday, the maximum 17 were from Uttar Pradesh, 14 from Bihar, five from Odisha and four from Jharkhand, where officials said more than 1,300 people are hospitalised with heatstroke conditions.
From invoking the 'Saptarishi' (Ursa Major) constellation, seven basic notes of Indian classical music to 'saat phere' (seven circumambulations) -- parties give different reasons and logic to claim that they will emerge victorious in the polls.
It was curtains down on the high-decibel campaigning for the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as sparring among political rivals intensified during the last-minute canvassing on Monday.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
Azam Khan is currently a member of Parliament from Rampur Lok Sabha.
Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
The last two phases of the elections will be held on March 3 and 7.
'...the electoral playing field is tilted significantly in its favour.'
Political parties earlier used to seek vote on the basis of caste and religion, said Kejriwal.
The cumulative seizure of such illegal inducements in the five poll-going states -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab -- stood at Rs 1,039.50 crore, the sources said, adding that it included drugs worth Rs 571.34 crore.
Of the 59 assembly constituencies, three have been categorised as 'sensitive' and 590 localities marked as 'vulnerable,' according to the police.
Over 56 per cent turnout was recorded on Monday in 54 assembly seats, including in Varanasi, in the seventh and last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, marking the end of the voting process spread over two months in the crucial state.
An important meeting of top Bharatiya Janata Party leadership was held on Wednesday in Delhi regarding the party's organisational elections, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress said the ECI finally released the voter turnout data late last night after a completely unacceptable delay of 11 days for Phase I and 4 days for Phase 2.
The steady turnout right from morning took Tuesday's Uttar Pradesh phase six poll to an impressive 60 per cent.
Voting for the seventh and final phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections covering 54 seats, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency Varanasi, will be held on Monday to decide the phase of 613 candidates.
The video in this regard was shared by Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on their social media accounts.
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