Wayanad to seal Rahul Gandhi’s fate in phase-2 Lok Sabha elections
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Polling underway for 88 seats across 13 states; elections to conclude in Kerala, Rajasthan, Tripura and Manipur
TNR Desk
The voting for phase-2 Lok Sabha elections is underway across 88 seats of 13 states and union territories on Friday (April 26, 2024).
The votes will be cast in all 20 Lok Sabha seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
The phase-2 Lok Sabha elections will lead to end of the polling process in Kerala, Rajasthan, Tripura and Manipur. Earlier, 89 constituencies were expected to vote in phase-2 Lok Sabha elections, but the polling was rescheduled in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul after the death of a candidate from the Bahujan Samaj Party. Betul will now vote in the third phase on May 7. In 2019, the ruling BJP-led NDA won 56 of these 89 seats, while the opposition UPA secured 24.
Union ministers, ex-CM in fray
Among the prominent contestants in the phase-2 Lok Sabha elections are former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Rajeev Chandrasekhar; BJP’s Tejasvi Surya, Hema Malini, and Arun Govil, Congress leader KC Venugopal and Shashi Tharoor, and former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy.
However, there were reports of EVM breakdowns in various booths across Kerala, delaying the election process in those places.
In Karnataka, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, software industry icon N R Narayana Murthy, his wife and Rajya Sabha member Sudha Murty, former cricketer Rahul Dravid and actor Prakash Raj were among the early voters as polling got under way in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies.
3 states vote in North
In the north, polling was going on for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, Jammu constituency in Jammu and Kashmir and eight seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Besides voting was under way in many seats in the east, including Tripura East Lok Sabha constituency, remaining part of the Outer Manipur parliamentary seat, five Lok Sabha seats in Assam, three constituencies in northern West Bengal and five Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
