New Delhi, . An estimated 57.47 percent of voting took place on Monday in 49 seats across 8 states/union territories in the crucial fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The highest turnout was reported in West Bengal (7 seats) at 73 percent and the lowest in Maharashtra (13 seats) at 48.88 percent, although the Bollywood brigade came out in large numbers to vote.
The figures for other states/UTs are as follows: 67.15 percent in Ladakh (1 seat), 63 percent in Jharkhand (3 seats), 60.72 percent in Odisha (5 seats plus 35 assembly seats), 54.49 percent in Jammu and Kashmir. The percentages were. (1 seat), 57.79 percent in Uttar Pradesh (14 seats) and 52.6 percent in Bihar.
This figure of voting percentage is till 7.45 pm. But this may be subject to revision, because according to the Election Commission, voters were still in queues at the formal closing of polling at 6 pm.
According to election officials of the Union Territory, the Baramulla seat in Jammu and Kashmir is expected to witness around 59 per cent voting, the highest since 1984. In 1996, voting was recorded at 46.65 percent.
Nearly 9 crore voters headed to polling stations throughout the day, braving the heat in many parts of the country, to decide the fate of 695 candidates after polling began at 7 am.
The Election Commission, however, regretted that voters in constituencies in cities like Mumbai, Thane, Nashik and Lucknow were not as enthusiastic as was seen in the 2019 elections.
The fifth phase was the smallest in terms of numbers, but it included a large number of high-profile seats from where top Union ministers Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Piyush Goyal (Mumbai North) and Smriti Irani (Amethi), Rahul Gandhi (Rae Bareli Many big leaders including ), Omar Abdullah (Baramulla) and Chirag Paswan (Hajipur) were contesting the elections.
Other key contests were in Kalyan, where Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s son and Shiv Sena leader Shrikant Shinde is in the fray, UP’s Kaiserganj, where sitting BJP MP and former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is in the fray for his son Karan Bhushan Singh. .
In Bihar’s Saran, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Rohini Acharya is contesting against BJP candidate and former Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, while in West Bengal’s Hooghly, Trinamool Congress candidate and actress Rachna Banerjee is contesting against actress-turned-politician BJP’s Locket. It is from Chatterjee.
With the end of the fifth phase, voting has been completed in 428 Lok Sabha seats across 25 States/UTs, including Maharashtra and Ladakh, where the election process has ended.
The next phase of voting is scheduled to take place on May 25, covering 58 seats including Haryana and Delhi.
