India National Elections 2024: Voting in the first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections commenced on April 19 in 102 constituencies spread across 17 states and four union territories. Eight Union Ministers, including Nitin Gadkari, Kiren Rijiju, Sarbanada Sonowal, Jitendra Singh, and Bhupendra Yadav, as well as Gaurav Gogoi of the Congress, Kanimozhi of the DMK, and K. Annamalai, the Tamil Nadu BJP president, are among those competing.
Southern India accounted for the greatest number of seats in the first phase, with 39 from Tamil Nadu and one from Puducherry. As the BJP attempted to establish a presence in the State, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made several trips there while on campaign. Still, the front-runners are the Dravidian giants, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
Additional seats up for vote include twenty-five in Rajasthan, eight in Uttar Pradesh, six in Madhya Pradesh, five in Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, and Assam, four in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two in Arunachal Pradesh, and one in each of Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh.
India National Elections 2024
Assembly elections are also taking place simultaneously in Sikkim (32 seats) and Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats).
Uttar Pradesh will be contested by three parties: the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the INDIA bloc, and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Udhampur-Doda is the sole Parliament seat in Jammu and Kashmir that will be up for election in the first phase. Jitendra Singh, a Union Minister considered close to the Prime Minister, is running against Congressman Chaudhary Lal Singh and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party’s G.M. Saroori. West Bengal and Maharashtra are the other important states for the saffron party.
Also Read: Lok Sabha Election 2024 Phase 1
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP-led NDA seeks a larger majority, the members of the opposition INDIA alliance are looking for a comeback after defeats in the 2014 and 2019 elections.