Lok Sabha elections 2024: First phase of polling in 102 seats across 21 states to vote on April 19

The two main alliances --- National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)-driven by the Congress, have been pitching electoral promises to woo voters on their side.

Anish Kumar

First Published Apr 17, 2024, 2:33 PM IST

India is gearing up for the first of seven phases Lok Sabha election scheduled on April 19 for 102 seats across the country, including all seats in Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand. Tamil Nadu has 39 seats while Uttarakhand has 5, which will see voting in the first phase. These 102 constituencies are spread across 21 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal among others.

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Asianet Newsable spoke to political analyst and psephologist at the Centre for the Study of Developing Studies (CSDS), Sanjay Kumar, in Delhi to understand the changing dynamics in the ongoing poll season in the country.

"The BJP is contesting the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, emerging global power, in a quest for becoming major economic power planks in this election. The Congress has been focusing on issues like price rise, unemployment and corruption. The grand old party is also seeking votes on the plank of saving democracy and the Constitution," Sanjay Kumar said.

On being asked about which party has upper hand in this election, the political analyst said, "Recently, we have conducted a survey across the country and we found the BJP still has 40 per cent support base while the Congress has just 21 and if we combine other alliance partners’ support base it would be 34 per cent, which is significantly lower than the BJP."

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On recent judgement by the Supreme Court on electoral bonds, which declared it as null and void and had asked the State Bank of India to submit the list of donors to the election commission and then subsequently releasing the list in the public domain, Sanjay Kumar said: “It has no impact on the ground in rural areas and most of the cities too.”

It must be noted that the 2024 election will be the largest democratic exercise in history and also the most expensive one in the world. In 2019, over USD 8.7 billion was spent to woo more than 900 million eligible voters.

Last time, a total of 8,054 candidates representing 673 parties for 543 seats were in the fray to reach the Lower House of Parliament.

About 615 million people or 67.4 per cent people participated in the election last year.

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Last Updated Apr 17, 2024, 2:33 PM IST