Elections 2019: As we get closer to last stage, here is the story so far

425 constituencies have voted already with 118 left to go. We will know the results on May 23

General Elections 2019 have been a rather long affair. Seven phases of voting are being conducted over two months before India can find out the verdict of the large electorate.

Here is a snapshot of the numbers involved in this massive exercise.

Nearly 900 million Indians are eligible to vote in these elections, of which 432 million are women. The number of polling booths that have been set up is about one million (up 10 per cent over 2014). India had 830 million registered voters in 2014, of which 66 per cent (or nearly 553 million) actually exercised their right to vote.

On May 23, 2019, when the result is declared, 543 seats would have elected their representatives to the Lok Sabha. Two other seats are reserved for members of the Anglo-Indian community. These members are nominated by the President of India.

Five phases out of seven have been completed and in 425 constituencies, the voters have already exercised their franchise. This represents 78 per cent of all the seats going to polls.

Most of the phases saw a higher voter turnout in 2019 than 2014. Only the second phase of voting saw voter turnout dip by 0.18 percentage points. This phase saw 95 seats go to polls.

Of the 425 seats that voted in the first five phases, the Bharatiya Janata Party had 206 incumbent MPs, while the Indian National Congress had 39. The AIADMK made the third biggest contingent, with 37 MPs who had won in 2014 going to polls.

The 118 seats that are left to vote are equally divided between phases 6 and 7. Fifty nine seats will go to polls on 12 May while the remaining 59 will vote a week later on May 19, 2019.

This is the state-wise split for phases six and seven:

In phase 6, the BJP has 44 seats at stake while it has 34 seats at stake in the final phase. The Congress party had only five MPs out of these 118 in 2014.

Important and high profile battles in these phases will be in Gurdaspur, Bhopal, Sonipat, New Delhi, North East Delhi, East Delhi, Patna Sahib and Varanasi.

In Gurdaspur, actor Sunny Deol is the BJP candidate taking on sitting Congress MP (won in bypoll) Sunil Jakhar. The seat was earlier represented by BJP’s Vinod Khanna. 

In Bhopal, it will be former Madhya Pradesh CM, Digvijaya Singh who will taken on BJP candidate and terror accused, Pragya Thakur.

In Sonipat, former Haryana CM, Bhupinder Singh Hooda is contesting as a Congress candidate. He had last contested for Lok Sabha in 2004 from Rohtak.

In New Delhi, it will be a battle between former cabinet minister, Ajay Maken of the Congress against sitting MP, BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi.

In North East Delhi, another former CM, Sheila Dixit will take on sitting MP and BJP’s Delhi unit chief, Manoj Tiwari.

In Patna Sahib, former BJP leader and actor Shatrughan Sinha will be contesting against cabinet minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad of the BJP. And in Varanasi, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi will be staking his claim to membership of the Lok Sabha once again to be able to retain the chair of Prime Minister.
 

Once voting is completed on May 19, the bar on releasing exit polls data will be lifted. The counting of votes will start on the morning of May 23.