Second phase of Lok Sabha poll begins on 88 seats

The second phase of voting of the Lok Sabha elections has begun on 88 seats across 13 states. PM Narendra Modi has urged each and every citizen, especially the young ones and women, to vote in “record numbers”.

Numerous individuals have voted, including novelist and philanthropist Sudha Murty and her husband, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, as well as BJP veteran and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

Voting of Second Phase Begins

Though, orginaly the voting was to be held on 89 seats in the second phase, but due to the death of a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate in Betul seat of Madhya Pradesh, now voting will be held in the third phase there. The Election Commission said that in this phase, more than 16 lakh polling officers have been deployed at 1.67 lakh voting centres. There are more than 15.88 crore voters in this phase, of which 8.08 crore are men, 7.8 crore are women and 5929 are of third gender. According to the Election Commission, in this phase 34.8 lakh voters will use their voting rights for the first time. There are 3.28 crore voters in the age group of 20-29 years.

Also read: Election Commission’s notice to BJP-Congress over speeches of PM Modi and Rahul

In the first phase, Voting was held on 102 seats

Nearly 65.5 per cent voting took place in the first phase of voting held last Friday on 102 seats in a total of 21 states and union territories. After the second phase on Friday, elections will be completed in Kerala, Rajasthan and Tripura. On April 19, in the first phase, elections were held on Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2). Apart from this, elections have been completed for one seat each in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, Sikkim and Lakshadweep.

Rahul Gandhi from Waynad

In the Lok Sabha elections 2019, the ruling NDA won 56 out of these 89 seats and the UPA won 24 seats. Of these, six seats have emerged after delimitation. In Kerala, more than five lakh voters out of 2,77,49,159 voters will cast their votes for the first time. Rahul Gandhi is the sitting MP from Wayanad and is facing competition from Communist Party of India’s (CPI) Annie Raja and BJP’s K.K. Surendran.