Voting begins in first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024: 10 key points

Voting for the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 began on April 19. The first phase will see voting in 102 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats, across 17 states and four Union Territories.

Here are the top 10 key points:

1. The first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 polls is being held on all seats of Tamil Nadu (39), Rajasthan (12), Uttar Pradesh (8), Madhya Pradesh (6), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1). There will be five seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, four in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two in Manipur, and one each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh.

2. Among the prominent faces involved are eight Union ministers, including Nitin Gadkari, Kiren Rijiju, Sarbanada Sonowal, Jitendra Singh, and Bhupendra Yadav, alongside Gaurav Gogoi from the Congress, Kanimozhi from the DMK, and K Annamalai, the Tamil Nadu BJP chief.

3. The entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, UTs such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry will go to polls in a first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 19.

4. None of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu are represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As many as 24 are represented by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The Congress party represents nine seats in Tamil Nadu.

5. Backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is aiming to win 370 of 543 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 elections. The PM has set a target of 400 for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA won 353 seats — up by 5 per cent from 2014.

6. In Uttar Pradesh, there will be a three-way contest involving the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the INDIA bloc, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In Jammu and Kashmir, the only Parliament seat going to the polls in the first phase is Udhampur-Doda.

7. In 2019, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 45 of these 102 seats, and the NDA won 41. Six of the seats have been redrawn as part of delimitation.

8. Four states — Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh — will pick new assemblies alongside this Lok Sabha elections.

9. The BJP is fighting 77 out of the 102 seats going to polls in the first phase of the Lok Saha elections. The remaining 25 are being contested by other NDA partners.

10. The INDIA bloc has put up 114 candidates in the 102 Lok Sabha seats which are going to polls in the first phase. On a constituency-wise basis, there is more than one INDIA bloc candidate in 12 out of the 102 seats in the first phase.