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A total of 91 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to the polls on Thursday, the outcome of which will be crucial to the fortunes of the alliance that forms a government at the Centre.
Voting for all the seats in Chandigarh, Delhi, Kerala, Haryana, Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep, along with some seats in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, will begin at seven am on Thursday.
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In all these regions, only door-to-door campaigning is allowed as of now.
In Uttar Pradesh, 10 parliamentary constituencies across 11 districts in the state’s western region will see voting —Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Kairana, Aligarh, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Gautambudh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr. The candidates in the fray include former army chief V K Singh (Ghaziabad); actors-turned-politicians Raj Babbar (Ghaziabad), Jaya Prada (Bijnor) and Nagma (Meerut), and the Aam Aadmi Party’s founder member Shazia Ilmi (Ghaziabad).
In Baghpat, former Mumbai police commissioner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Satyapal Singh is contesting against Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Ajit Singh.
During the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party had won five seats in these constituencies; the BJP had won two; the RLD two and the Samajwadi Party one. Last year, western Uttar Pradesh had witnessed communal riots in which several lives were lost. The region has a sizeable Muslim population, which can influence the outcome of results.
In Delhi, the Congress’s Ajay Maken is pitted against BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi in the New Delhi constituency. The AAP’s Ashish Khetan is also contesting from the same constituency.
Incumbent Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit is contesting against AAP candidate Rajmohan Gandhi. The BJP’s Maheish Girri, the choice of spiritual guru Ravishankar, hopes to cash in on the Narendra Modi’s appeal, but is trailing behind Gandhi and Dikshit.
J P Aggarwal, the sitting MP from Northeast Delhi, faces a challenge from Bhojpuri singer-actor Manoj Tiwari of the BJP. The AAP is fielding Anand Kumar, a professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University professor, from this constituency.
Kapil Sibal, who won the Chandni Chowk seat in 2004 and 2009 with big margins, is contesting against the BJP’s Harsh Vardhan and former television journalist Ashutosh from the AAP.
The BJP has fielded Ramesh Bidhuri, a Gujjar, from the South Delhi constituency and Parvesh Verma, a Jat, from West Delhi.
The Congress has bowed out of the race for the North West constituency, where sitting MP Krishna Tirath is yet to come out to campaign. Former Indian Revenue Service officer and Dalit leader Udit Raj, fielded by the BJP, is fighting the AAP’s Rakhi Birla.
In 2009, Kerala saw 16 MPs from the Congress-led United Democratic Front emerge victorious. If the Congress has to return to power at the Centre, it is crucial the alliance repeats this performance.
In Chandigarh, former railway minister Pawan Bansal will contest. Though he had won in 1991, 1999, 2004 and 2009, this time, he might find the going tough. In May 2013, his nephew, Vijay Singla, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation for allegedly accepting a Rs 90-lakh bribe in a cash-for-job scam. Following this, Bansal was forced to resign from the Union government. For the 10 seats in the Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region that go to the polls on Thursday, former BJP president Nitin Gadkari and former Union minister Praful Patel are set to contest.
