Lok Sabha elections phase V: 51 seats in seven states vote today

Ministers Rajnath Singh, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Smriti Irani and Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi among key candidates.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Smriti Irani, Jayant Sinha and Arjun Ram Meghwal and Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are among the key candidates in the fifth phase.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the BJP's campaigning, holding several rallies. BJP chief Amit Shah, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and a host of Union ministers among others also canvassed for their party candidates in the past few days, undertaking whirlwind tours of constituencies.

Voting will take place in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 12 in Rajasthan, seven seats each in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, five in Bihar, four in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.

Uttar Pradesh

Polling will be held for 14 seats in Banda, Mohanlalganj (SC), Faizabad, Sitapur, Kaushambi (SC), Lucknow, Dhaurahra, Fatehpur, Kaiserganj, Bahraich (SC), Barabanki (SC), Rae Bareli, Gonda and Amethi. The key contenders are BJP’s Rajnath Singh vs Congress’s Poonam Sinha in Lucknow, Rahul Gandhi vs Smriti Irani in Amethi and Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli.

The BJP had bagged 12 of the 14 seats in 2014 with Sonia Gandhi winning in Rae Bareli and Rahul in Amethi.

Rajasthan

Bharatpur (SC), Churu, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner (SC), Dausa (ST), Jaipur, Alwar, Nagaur, Ganganagar (SC), Jaipur Rural and Karauli-Dholpur (SC) will go for polls on Monday. BJP’s Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore vs Congress’s Krishna Poonia are key contenders to look out for.

Bihar

Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Saran, Hajipur (SC) and Sitamarhi will go for polls on Monday. BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Saran is a key contender.

West Bengal

Seats in which elections will be held are Bongaon(SC), Barrackpur, Howrah, Uluberia, Serampore, Hooghly and Arambagh (SC) where an electorate of 1,16,91,889 will decide the fate of 83 candidates, the Election Commission said.

Jharkhand

Kodarma, Ranchi, Khunti and Hazaribagh will go for polls with 8 candidates. BJP’s Jayant Sinha from Hazaribagh and Congress’ Subodh Kant Sahay from Ranchi are key contender.

Madhya Pradesh

Polling for Tikamgarh, Damoh, Khajuraho, Satna, Rewa, Hoshangabad and Betul seats, all held by the BJP currently, will take place on Monday.

Jammu and Kashmir

Pulwama and Shopian districts are going to polls on May 6 in the third leg of polling in the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. Polling will also be held in Ladakh.

For the smallest of the 7 phases of 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Election Commission has set up 96,000 polling stations, where 87.5 million people will decide the fate of 668 candidates.

Election to 542 Lok Sabha seats is being conducted in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. Election in Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu has been cancelled following excess use of money power. Results will be declared on May 23.