People in 15 states will vote on Tuesday in the third phase of LokSabha elections scheduled for Tuesday which will see a maximum of 117 seats going to the polls in a single phase of seven-phased election.
Voting will be completed in all seats of Gujarat, Kerala,Goa, Karanataka, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveliand Daman and Diu with the third phase polls.
The presidents of the two main political parties are in frayin the third phase with BJP chief Amit Shah making his LokSabha election debutfrom Gandhinagar and Congress President Rahul Gandhi contesting from Wayanad.
The BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) will aim to defend the 62 ofthe 117 third phase seats it won in 2014 and its performance in this phase willbe crucial in deciding its political fortunes.
The Congress had won 16 seats, while the remaining seatswere divided between BJD (6), CPI-M (7), NCP (4), Samajwadi Party (3), ShivSena (2), RJD (2), AIUDF (2), IUML (2), LJP (1), PDP (1), RSP (1), KeralaCongress-M (1), CPI (1), SwabhimaniPaksha (1) and Trinamool Congress (1). Threeseats were won by Independent candidates.
This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat —where polling will be held for all the 26 LokSabha seats — apart fromKaranataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in2014.
In 2014, the BJP won all the 26 seats in Gujarat, 11 of 14in Karnataka, 8 of 10 in Uttar Pradesh, 6 of 7 in Chhattisgarh, 6 of 14 inMaharashtra, both the seats in Goa and one seat each in Assam, Bihar, Dadra andNagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
Gujarat being the home state of Prime Minister NarendraModi,the BJP would again look for a clean sweep in the state. However, the Congress,which gave a tough fight to the BJP in the Assembly polls held in 2017, ishoping to win 10 to 15 seats this time.
The three young Gujarat leaders — Hardik Patel,AlpeshThakor and JigneshMewani — whose positions had helped the Congress builda narrative against the BJP during the Assembly elections, are not in the frayfor the LokSabha polls.
Patidar agitation leader Patel, who joined the Congress lastmonth, cannot contest due to his conviction in a rioting case, while Thakorquit the Congress earlier this month.
In Karnataka, the BJP is considered to have strong footingin many of the 14 seats going to the polls on Tuesday. However, the saffronparty faces tough challenge from the Congress-JD-S combine.
Moreover, its vote share too dipped in the Assembly pollsheld in Karnataka last year as compared to the 2014 LokSabha elections. In theAssembly elections, the BJP had polled lesser votes than the Congress but gotmore seats.
The BJP faces a strong challenge in Uttar Pradesh, as thethird phase of LokSabha elections will be fought in the “Yadav belt”.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) strongholds of Mainpuri, Badaun andSambhal will go to the polls on Tuesday and the party’s prospects have receiveda considerabe boost following its alliance with the BahujanSamaj Party (BSP).The Congress too is also likely to cut into BJP votes.
PragatisheelSamajwadi Party (Lohia) President Shivpal SinghYadav, who is contesting from Firozabad against his nephew and SP candidateAkshayYadav, has been cautioning the people against the SP-BSP combine. SPpatriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting from Mainpuri. The joint rally heldin the constituency on Friday, in which BSP supremoMayawati, Mulayam SinghYadav and AkhileshYadav shared the stage, is likely to boost the prospects ofthe SP candidates.
In Maharashtra, the third phase of polling will be held insome NCP strongholds, including Baramati, Madha, Kolahpur and Satara.Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President SharadPawar’s daughter SupriyaSuleis contesting from the party’s bastion in Baramati.
The Congress and the NCP have dominated the local bodies andcooperatives in the sugar belt of the state, which has of late been challengedby the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. The LokSabha results will show if the NCP is ableto regain its earlier dominance in the region.
In Chhattisgarh, the BJP has sought to beat theanti-incumbency wave against its sitting MPs by replacing all of them. Here thesaffron party faces a renewed challenge from the Congress, which returned topower in the state in 2018 after 15 years. The Congress is focusing more onlocal issues, telling the voters that its government has quickly delivered onits promises.
Of the five seats in Bihar, the BJP had won only one in 2014and it is again contesting one seat this time. Janata Dal (United), the BJP’sally in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), is contesting three seats whilethe LokJanshakti Party (LJP) is contesting one seat.
As part of the grand alliance, the RashtriyaJanata Dal (RJD)is contesting three seats, while the Congress and the VikasheelInsaan Party(VIP) are contesting one seat each.
The key contest is in Madhepura, where sitting MPPappuYadav, who had won on a RJD ticket in 2014, is contesting for the JanAdhikar Party, a political outfit floated by him in 2015. He is up against RJDcandidate SharadYadav.
In Odisha, the third phase of elections will witness abattle between several political heavyweights as well as former bureaucrats.
Puri will witness a triangular fight between spokespersonsof three major political parties, as two-time sitting MP and BJD spokesman PinakiMishra will cross swords with BJP’s national spokesperson SambitPatra and stateCongress media cell Chairman Satya Prakash Nayak. Dhenkanal is also expected towitness a triangular fight.
In the four constituencies of lower Assam that will go tothe polls on Tuesday, both the Congress and the All India United DemocraticFront (AIUDF) are seeking to gain votes by targeting the BJP over its stance insupport of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
The AIUDF has accused the Congress of not adhering to”gentleman’s agreement” between the two parties under which theregional party did not put up candidates on 11 seats and was expecting theCongress to field “weak candidates”. Congress, however, has said thatit had no such arrangement. The Congress will look to swell its tally in Keralawith Rahul Gandhi in the fray from Wayanad. The party had won 8 of the 20 seatsin 2014 while a few more were won by its allies. The BJP too is seeing arealistic chance to win four seats in the southern state.
In West Bengal where it faces a multi-cornered challenge from the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and the CPI-M, the Congress will seek to at least retain the three seats it won in 2014.