As many as 10.17 crore voters will decide the fate of 979 candidates on Sunday in the fray in the sixth phase of polling in 59 Lok Sabha seats across seven States.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elec tions, the BJP had won as many as 45 of these seats. Voting will be held for 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, eight seats each in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, four seats in Jharkhand, all seven seats in Delhi and all 10 seats in Haryana.
The BJP would not only seek to retain its seats but also expand in newer territories like West Bengal where the Trinamool had won all the eight seats in the last election.
In Uttar Pradesh, however, the BJP will face a tough challenge from the grand alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) that will seek to consolidate the anti-BJP votes in the State.
The most keenly watched battle is in Madhya Pradesh for the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat where the Congress has fielded two-term chief minister Digvijaya Singh. He will face controversial BJP candidate and Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur.
The BJP has been winning the seat since 1989 and the current duel is seen as a prestige battle. Other key candidates from MP include the Congress’ Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna and Union Minister Narender Singh Tomar from Morena.
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The contest for the seven seats from Delhi promises to be another cliff-hanger with all of them set for three-cornered fights.
Prominent candidates in the national capital include former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, former Union Minister Ajay Maken, cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir, Atishi Marlena Singh of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), and Olympian boxer Vijender Singh.
In Uttar Pradesh, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who has replaced his father Mulayam Singh Yadav from Azamgarh, will face BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua,’ a popular Bhojpuri actor-singer, a new comer in politics.
Union Minister Maneka Gandhi will taking on Congress’ Sanjay Singh from Sultanpur that was earlier represented by her son, Varun Gandhi.
In Haryana, where elections to all the 10 seats will be held in a single day, key candidates include former Haryana chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Sonipat, his son Deepender from Rohtak, Dushyant Chautala from Hisar, who is contesting after floating the Jananayak Janata Party (JJP), Congress’ Kumari Selja from Ambala and the party’s Haryana chief Ashok Tanwar from Sirsa.
Of the eight seats in Bihar, the most high profile contest would be that of Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, who is seeking a sixth term from East Champaran (earlier known as Motihari).
Neighbouring Jharkhand will hold elections to four Lok Sabha seats of Giridih, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur and the tribal seat of Singhbhum.
The eight seats in West Bengal include those from the Jangal Mahal area — Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram and West Midnapore — that used to be a Maoist stronghold during the Left rule in the State.
Published - May 11, 2019 07:04 pm IST
