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New Delhi: Under the third phase (Third phase) of Lok Sabha elections in the country – 2024, the election campaign for 94 seats in 12 states stopped at 6 pm on Sunday evening. Voting on these seats will be held on Tuesday, May 7. The seats for which elections will be held in this phase include 25 seats in Gujarat, 14 in Karnataka, 11 in Maharashtra, nine in Madhya Pradesh, seven in Chhattisgarh, five in Bihar, four in Assam and two in Goa. During the elections for nine seats of Madhya Pradesh, the political future of three big stalwarts Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijay Singh will be decided. During this period, more than 1.77 crore voters will decide the fate of 127 candidates contesting for nine seats. These include seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).
Voting will be held on 9 seats of Madhya Pradesh
These nine seats of Madhya Pradesh include Morena, Bhind (SC), Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal, Rajgarh and Betul (ST) constituencies. Veteran BJP leader and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is contesting from Vidisha seat after almost 17 years, which he has represented in the Lok Sabha several times in the past. Shivraj is contesting from Congress candidate Pratap Bhanu Sharma. On the Rajgarh seat, veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, 77, is contesting against two-time BJP MP Rodmal Nagar. BJP hopes to win all the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh. The votes of Yadav community can swing the election in Guna seat and here Scindia is facing Congress’s Yadvendra Singh Yadav. In 2019, Scindia was the Congress candidate, but lost to BJP’s KP Yadav in this stronghold of the Scindia family.
Scindia, a scion of the former royal family of Gwalior, left the Congress in 2020 and joined the BJP. Chauhan looks comfortable in Vidisha, but the contest may be close in Rajgarh. Digvijay Singh won from Rajgarh seat in 1984 and 1991, but lost in 1989. He became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh in 1993.
Voting on 7 seats in Chhattisgarh
Of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, the seven seats for which elections will be held include Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Janjgir-Champa (SC), Korba, Surguja (ST) and Raigarh (ST). Elections are to be held in Chhattisgarh in three phases. Voting has been held in Naxal-affected Bastar (ST) on 19th April and for Rajnandgaon, Kanker (ST) and Mahasamund seats on 26th April. In the ‘high-profile’ Raipur seat, BJP’s influential Minister of State Brijmohan Aggarwal will face former Congress MLA Vikas Upadhyay.
In Korba, BJP has fielded its influential woman leader and former MP Saroj Pandey against Jyotsna Mahant, wife of Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and sitting Congress MP Jyotsna Mahant. On Durg seat, Congress has fielded Rajendra Sahu against sitting BJP MP Vijay Baghel. On Bilaspur seat, Congress has fielded outgoing MLA Devendra Yadav against former BJP MLA Tokhan Sahu.
Former Minister of State Shivkumar Dahria is the Congress candidate from Janjgir-Champa, the only SC reserved seat, who will face BJP’s woman leader Kamlesh Jangde. There will be a contest on Surguja seat between Chintamani Maharaj of BJP and Shashi Singh of Congress, who left Congress before the 2023 assembly elections. The tribal-dominated Raigarh seat will see a contest between BJP’s Radheshyam Rathiya and Congress’s Dr. Maneka Devi Singh, who hails from the former royal family of Sarangarh.
168 candidates are in the fray for seven seats of Chhattisgarh.
168 candidates are in the fray for seven seats in Chhattisgarh, while the number of eligible voters is 1,39,01,285. Campaigning for the by-elections for 25 Lok Sabha seats and five assembly seats in Gujarat has also stopped. BJP’s Mukesh Dalal has already won unopposed from Surat after the nomination of Congress’ Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected due to irregularities in the signatures of the proposers and other candidates withdrew their nominations.
Voting on Amit Shah’s seat in Gandhinagar also
Prominent candidates from Gujarat include Union Home Minister Amit Shah from Gandhinagar seat, Mansukh Mandaviya from Porbandar seat and Parshottam Rupala from Rajkot seat. The BJP faced the ire of the Kshatriya community over a comment made by Rupala in Rajkot during the campaign, as she claimed that many rulers of the community had ‘roti and beti’ relations with the British and other foreign invaders. The contest is against former Congress MLA Paresh Dhanani, who had defeated him in the 2002 assembly elections. In Gujarat, Congress has fielded four sitting and eight former MLAs and is contesting the elections in alliance with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Under the agreement, Congress got 24 seats (including Surat), while AAP was given Bhavnagar and Bharuch.
AAP has fielded sitting MLA Chaitra Vasava from Bharuch seat and Umesh Makwana from Bhavnagar seat. According to election officials, a total of 4.97 crore persons, including 2.56 crore men, 2.41 crore women and 1,534 people of the third gender, are eligible to vote in Gujarat. Will be able to vote at 50,788 polling stations.
Voting on 2 seats of Goa also
More than 11 lakh people vote for Goa Kido Lok Sabha seat election
