Voting for the 18th Lok Sabha has started from last April 19. The second phase of total seven rounds of voting is today Friday. Voting is taking place in a total of 88 constituencies in 13 states and union territories of the country. Voting is taking place in three centers of West Bengal, Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, actress Hema Malini and a host of star candidates are in the fray for the second phase of the polls. Several members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet are also being ‘tested’ today.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy (Mandya) and Chhattisgarh’s former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel (Rajnandgaon) are in the fray for the second phase of polls. Karnataka BJP youth leader Tejashwi Surya (Bengaluru South) and deputy chief minister and state Congress president DK Shivakumar’s brother Suresh also attended the Janata Durbar. Hema Malini (Mathura) and Arun Govil (Meerut) are contesting the Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket from Uttar Pradesh. Hema is a two-time MP from Mathura. But in this first vote battle, the popular face of Samil TV serial is Arun
Meanwhile, along with Rahul, former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor (Thiruanantapuram) and AICC General Secretary (Organization) KC Venugopal (Alappuzha) are contesting on Congress tickets from Kerala. Also, several members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet will be ‘tested’ in this round of voting.
Meanwhile, the second round of voting is set to be accompanied by heated debate. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself gave birth to the controversy by saying that if Congress comes to power, the country’s wealth will be divided among Muslims. Voting politics has been active around that controversy for several days. The main focus of the debate will be whether the second phase of the polls will encourage Hindutva voters to vote more and lead to religious polarization across the country.
It is known that Rahul Gandhi is contesting the elections from his old constituency, Kerala’s Waynar. His main fight there is against CPI candidate Annie Raja of Left Alliance LDF. She is the wife of CPI general secretary D Raja. BJP state president K Surendran is also there. Former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor (Thiruanantapuram) and AICC General Secretary (Organization) KC Venugopal (Alappuzha) are contesting the polls on Congress tickets from Kerala. CPM’s notable candidates are two former ministers KK Sailaja and Thomas Isaac (Pathanamthitta).
CPM politburo member A Vijayaraghavan is also a candidate for Palakkad seat. Two BJP Union Ministers — Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Thiruanantapuram) and V Muralidharan (Attingal) — are in the fray from Kerala. Modi cabinet member Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is again in the fray from his old constituency Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is the BJP candidate from Kota in that state. On the other hand, former chief minister Ashok Gehlaut’s son Vaibhav (Jalore) and one-time West Bengal in-charge AICC general secretary CP Joshi are prominent candidates of the Congress in Maruraj.
Polling will be held in all the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies of Kerala in the second phase. Besides, Karnataka has 14 Lok Sabha constituencies, Rajasthan has 13, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have eight each, Bihar and Assam have five Lok Sabha constituencies in this list. There is also one Lok Sabha seat each from the northeastern region of Tripura and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
