India polls end Sunday, all eyes on Baranasi
The marathon Indian 17th Lok Sabha polls, the world’s largest democratic exercise, will come to an end Sunday with holding polling in 59 parliamentary constituencies spread over seven states and a union territory.
Over 100 million voters are expected to decide the fate of 918 candidates from various political parties including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and independent one in the last and 7th phase of the polls.
Polling will be taken place in eight constituencies in Bihar, four in Himachal, three in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 13 each in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal and one in Chandigarh Sunday.
Besides, all eyes are now on Baranasi as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is again contesting from the parliamentary constituency, the BJP’s strong hold where polling would be taken place tomorrow.
He will take on Shalini Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Ajay Rai (Congress) and Atiq Ahmed (Independent) from Baranasi.
In 2014 election, Narendra Modi (BJP) defeated Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) by the margin of 370,000 votes in the constituency.
Campaigning has been ended yesterday (except West Bengal) for the seventh and final phase of Lok Sabha election 2019. Political parties across the country are leaving no stone unturned in their attempts to woo the voters.
In West Bengal, violence was taken place between the Trinamool Congress and its arch rival BJP activists during the campaign on Thursday forcing authorities to deploy additional forces to bring normalcy for holding the election in a free, fair and peaceful manner.
The last phase of the parliamentary election will decide the fate of a number of prominent candidates including union ministers, veteran politicians and film actors.
They are union ministers Manoj Sinha (BJP), Ram Kripal Yadav (BJP) and Ashwani Kumar Choubey (BJP), veteran politicians Kiron Kher (BJP), Harsimrat Badal (SAD) and Preneet Kaur (congress), actors Shatrughan Sinha (congress) and Sunny Deol (BJP), the three times chief minister of Jharkhand Shibu Soren, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
Earlier on 10 March, the election commission of India announced the schedule of the 543-seats Lok Sabha polls, the world’s largest democratic exercise, having nearly 900 million voters.
The first phase of the polls was held on 11 April while the second phase on 18 April, third phase on 23 April, fourth phase on 29 April, fifth phase on 6 May and sixth phase on 12 May.
According to the schedule, the results of the polls Lok Sabha polls would be declared on 23 May. The tenure of the current parliament would ends on 3 June.