NEW DELHI:
Fifty nine seats, including Varanasi, will vote today in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections. Over 10.17 crore voters across seven states and one Union Territory will decide the fate of 918 candidates. The Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP had won 30 of the 59 seats in the 2014 elections.
Voting will be held for 13 parliamentary constituencies each in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, nine seats in West Bengal, Bihar (8), Madhya Pradesh (8), Himachal Pradesh (4), Jharkhand (3) and Chandigarh (1) today. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is contesting in 11 seats, while its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) is contesting Mirzapur, currently held by Union minister Anupriya Patel, and Robertsganj. The party has fielded Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan from Gorakhpur against Congress’s Madhusudan Tripathi and Rambhual Nishad of the Smajwadi Party.
All eyes are on Bihar’s Patna Sahib where Shatrughan Sinha is seeking to retain the seat for a third consecutive term, this time on a Congress ticket. Mr Sinha is up against Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. In West Bengal, sitting MP Abhishek Banerjee, who is the nephew of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and considered the number two in the party, is seeking re-election from the Diamond Harbour seat. The electoral fortunes of 42 candidates including that of former Chief Minister Shibu Soren will be decided in Jharkhand today.
