An estimated 8.95 crore people are expected to vote in the fifth phase of polling in India’s Lok Sabha elections covering 49 constituencies across eight states and union territories today.
The fifth phase will witness key contests in various constituencies. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, BJP leaders Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, among others, will be looking for electoral success.
With the seven-phased voting exercise spanning 44 days already well into the second half, voting will be held in around 94,732 polling stations spread across Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Lucknow are going to polls in this phase which have in the past suffered from urban apathy in voting. The Election Commission (EC) yesterday said it has especially called upon these city-dwellers “to erase the stigma by turning out in higher numbers.”
After the fifth phase, voting in 428 Lok Sabha constituencies out of a total of 543 will be completed. Polling in the sixth phase and seventh phase are scheduled for May 25 and June 1 before the votes are counted on June 4.
Besides Rahul Gandhi, Rajnath Singh and Omar, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is among the 695 candidates who will be in fray in the fifth phase.
The voter turnout in the fifth phase will once again be in focus after the turnout in the same seats in the first three phases has been less than compared to 2019.
However, that trend was broken in the fourth phase on May 13 when the overall voter turnout in 96 constituencies was 69.16 percent, slightly higher than the turnout in the same seats in 2019, as per the EC data.
Until now, the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 has seen the voter turnout of about 66.95 percent. Around 451 million people have already voted in the first four phases of polling, according to the EC.
Rahul Gandhi is trying his luck in Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, the Nehru-Gandhi family stronghold vacated by his mother Sonia Gandhi. BJP has fielded Uttar Pradesh minister Dinesh Pratap Singh as its candidate from Raebareli.
About 60km from Raebareli, another long-time Congress bastion Amethi will feature senior BJP leader Smriti Irani against Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma. Amethi had been the Gandhi family stronghold until Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi there in 2019. Rahul was a three-time MP Amethi from 2004 to 2014.
This is Irani’s third election from Amethi after losing in 2014 to Rahul Gandhi by one lakh votes and winning in 2019 by a margin of around 55,000 votes.
Omar Abdullah, vice president of National Conference, is contesting from Baramulla constituency in Jammu and Kashmir against Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party candidate Fayaz Ahmad Mir and Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference’s Sajjad Gani Lone.
