Phase-3 Election: Modi’s home state Gujarat, 10 other territories go to polls
Millions of Indians today turned up at polling booths in the third phase of voting covering 93 seats across 11 states and union territories that will see completion of the people’s mandate in more than half of the total of 543 seats.
Braving an unusually hot weather, people queued up outside polling stations to cast their votes as voting opened at 7:00am (local time). The voting will continue till 7 pm.
A total of 17.24 crore people — 8.85 crore men and 8.39 crore women — are eligible to vote in the third phase at 1.85 lakh polling stations when the electoral fate of more than 1,300 candidates, including Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, will be decided.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a rare third successive in office in the general elections, voted at a polling booth set up in a school in Gandhinagar this morning.
Modi is eyeing a third consecutive term with a mixture of development issues and assertive brand of Hindutva while opposition INDIA bloc is taking the caste-based and bread and butter approach to their campaign and cash doles to women in their manifesto.
The third phase is crucial for BJP and its allies as they had won 75 of the 93 seats in the last general elections in 2019 while INDIA block parties managed eleven.
While Amit Shah, a powerful aide of Narendra Modi, is seeking re-election from Gandhinagar constituency in his home state of Gujarat, Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of a former princely family, is trying his luck in Guna, Madhya Pradesh after having shifted from Congress to BJP some years ago.
Four constituencies in West Bengal will see polling today– Malda Uttar, Malda Dakshin, Jangipur and Murshidabad where CPIM) state general secretary Mohd Salim is in fray in a triangular fight against Abu Taher Khan of Congress and Gouri Shankar Das of BJP.
Other political big-wigs in the third phase are federal minister and BJP leader Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad in Karnataka), former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh (Rajgarh, Madhya Pradesh), Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav (Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s MP-daughter Supriya Sule (Baramati, Maharashtra).
With BJP having bagged Surat seat unopposed, 25 seats in Modi’s home state of Gujarat will go to polls today along with 11 seats in Maharashtra, 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the remaining 14 of the 28 in Karnataka, seven in Chhattisgarh, five in Bihar, four each in Assam and West Bengal, and all two in Goa. Polling has been completed in Rajasthan, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the first two phases.
The first two phases on April 19 and 26 saw polling having been completed in 190 constituencies with an approximate voter turnout at about 66%, the Election Commission has said. The number was lower than the last election in 2019. BJP had been hoping for a high turnout, hoping it would signal that its supporters had voted in force.
The remaining four phases of polling in the world’s largest parliamentary election will continue till June 1 and the counting of votes is scheduled for June 4. The polling for 189 seats was completed in a smooth and peaceful manner in the first two phases of the general elections.
Worried by the dip in the voter turnout in the first two phases, the EC has decided to issue SMS alerts and WhatsApp messages to nudge voters to go out and vote in bigger number in today’s round.
A part of the reason for the fall in turnout in the earlier phases was attributed to searing heat, but the weather condition is predicted to be normal, the EC said adding it has also made heat-mitigation arrangement like water, ORS, shamiana made at each polling station.
In a bid to draw more voters to booths in the third phase, the EC has partnered with four major telecom service providers — Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharti Airtel Limited, Jio Telecommunication and Vodafone-Idea Ltd — to facilitate messages and voice calls featuring national and state icons, before and on polling days, to encourage voter participation.
Voting in phase-three will be seen by a large number of foreign delegates, including from Bangladesh, to get a first-hand experience of India’s polling process and management.
That the consecration of Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22 this year is set to play an important role in Modi’s quest for a fresh tenure in office with high religious symbolism was evident on Sunday (May 5) when he offered prayers at the site for the first time after the grand shrine was inaugurated more than three months ago.
The Hindutva hype generated by the temple inauguration in January has diluted quite a bit as the opposition alliance INDIA kept a relentless focus on bread and butter issues like jobs and inflation.
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