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The Election Commission of India (EC) on Saturday announced the upcoming Lok Sabha election dates. According to the EC’s announcement, polling for 543 Lok Sabha constituencies will be conducted in seven phases, between April 19 and June 1, followed by counting of votes on June 4.
Phase I will be held on April 19, Phase II on April 26, Phase III on May 7, Phase IV on May 13, Phase V on May 20, Phase VI on May 25, and Phase VII on June 1.
Watch: Lok Sabha elections 2024 dates, full schedule phase wise
Himachal Pradesh
The BJP won all four Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, it is fighting a divided Congress.
The seats include these.
The BJP has fielded Union minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur, the Lok Sabha seat he has been winning since a 2008 bypoll. CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his deputy Mukesh Agnihotri also represent assembly segments in Hamirpur. Five of the six Congress MLAs who recently rebelled against the party were also elected from Hamirpur assembly segments.
Members of the region’s erstwhile families have tried their luck here. Himachal Congress president Pratibha Singh currently represents the constituency which also sent her husband Virbhadra Singh to Parliament in the past.
Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand has five Lok Sabha seats, all with the BJP since 2014. The last assembly elections also went to the party.
These are the more important constituencies.
Union minister and former chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank’ won the seat in the last two Lok Sabha elections. This time, the BJP has fielded Trivendra Singh Rawat, who was abruptly removed from the CM’s post in 2021. Though the Lok Sabha seat is now with the BJP, the majority of assembly segments are held by the opposition.
Former chief minister and BJP nominee Bhagat Singh Koshyari wrested the seat from the Congress in 2014. In the current Lok Sabha, it is represented by Union minister Ajay Bhatt, who defeated Congress veteran Harish Rawat by about 3.40 lakh votes.
Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, a BJP leader and member of the erstwhile Tehri royal family has represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha since a bypoll in 2012. The dynasty has dominated the constituency for decades: her father-in-law Manvendra Shah won eight Lok Sabha elections.
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, the highest among all states. The constituencies include Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi and Gandhi family bastions Amethi and Raebareli, which the Congress appears struggling to save.
Here’s a list of key constituencies in the country’s most populous state.
Samajwadi Party president Akhllesh Yadav is tipped to contest from Kannauj with its significant presence of OBC and Muslim voters. The constituency, once represented by Ram Manohar Lohia, is currently with the BJP. But it has been with the SP for years: Mulayam Singh Yadav won here in 1999, Akhilesh Yadav in 2000, 2004 and 2009, and his wife Dimple Yadav in 2012 and 2014.
An SP citadel represented once by Mulayam Singh Yadav, and currently by Dimple Yadav. Union minister S P Singh Baghel lost here by a big margin last time.
SP leader Shivpal Yadav has been named as the party candidate from Badaun, in an apparent attempt to regain the SP supremacy on this seat. In the last general election, BJP leader Sanghmitra Maurya, daughter of Swami Prasad Maurya, won here.
UP Congress leaders say they want Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest this family bastion held earlier by her mother Sonia Gandhi, who has now switched to the Rajya Sabha. There was speculation that SP MLA Manoj Pandey, who quit a key party post recently, could be fielded here by the BJP.
In 2019, Union minister Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi from what had been his home turf. He won three previous elections in a row from Amethi, which in the past was held by Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi as well. The BJP has fielded Irani here again this time.
Yogi Adityanath’s ‘karmabhoomi’ which he represented in Parliament five times before he became the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. He is presently an MLA from Gorakhpur Urban segment. Gorakhpur influences the results in other parliamentary constituencies in the region as well.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency from where he is now contesting for the third time. Before him, it was represented by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi. In 2014, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and Ajay Rai, the present state Congress president, fought unsuccessfully against Modi.
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, BJP leader and former Wrestling Federation of India president who faces charges of sexually harassing women players, has represented the constituency since 2009.
The parliamentary constituency has gained more prominence with the inauguration of the Ram temple — Ayodhya is part of the district which was earlier known as Faizabad. Ayodhya is set to be invoked by the BJP in its campaign. The party has picked former UP minister Lallu Singh again from this constituency.
It is being described as Azam Khan’s crumbling citadel. The SP leader and his son Abdullah Azam had to give up their Rampur Sadar and Suar assembly segments, which fall within this parliamentary constituency, when they were disqualified from the assembly. The BJP and its ally Apna Dal (S) then won them.
The BJP has renominated here Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni’, a controversial choice after his son was arrested following the death of eight people including four farmers in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in 2021. The episode in UP’s sugarcane belt still figures during protests by farmers.
A seat represented by Maneka Gandhi or her son Varun Gandhi for over two decades. The younger BJP leader has, however, been taking potshots at his own party in recent years. This has led to the possibility that he might not get the BJP ticket this time.
Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary was defeated by the BJP in this key seat in western UP in the last parliamentary elections. The party, which recently switched over to the BJP-led NDA, has already announced a candidate for Baghpat this time as part of a seat-sharing arrangement.
Rajasthan
Rajasthan accounts for 25 seats in the Lok Sabha and in the past two elections they have been held by the BJP.
These seats will be the most watched in the state.
Both Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot have a stake in this constituency. Shekhawat has won Jodhpur twice, the last time after defeating Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot by a margin of 2.74 lakh votes. Gehlot’s own assembly segment too falls within this parliamentary constituency.
Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla has won the last two Lok Sabha elections from this constituency. In 2019, his winning margin was 2.79 lakh votes. Kota is known as a coaching hub for medical and engineering college entrance exams. Frequent cases of student suicides have brought it bad press.
The Jat-dominated Nagaur seat is set to witness a keen contest with the BJP fielding former Congress MP Jyoti Mirdha, the granddaughter of Congress stalwart Nathuram Mirdha, who represented the constituency six times. The Congress is said to be in touch with former BJP ally, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party leader and current MLA Hanuman Beniwal for an electoral understanding.
The BJP has fielded Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, who recently left the Congress. The Congress is likely to ally with the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) to counter the turncoat on this seat. The three-MLA BAP has been gaining influence in this tribal belt.
The Congress won eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in 2019, leaving the remaining five to the BJP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party. But that was before the AAP scored a landslide victory in the assembly polls in 2022. These are the seats to watch out for now.
A major industrial centre in Punjab, Ludhiana was used to contests between the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal. But in the last two elections, the runners-up to the Congress winner Ravneet Singh Bittu have been the Lok Insaaf Party and the Aam Aadmi Party. A former leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Bittu is the grandson of Punjab’s slain chief minister Beant Singh.
In 2019, the BJP fielded Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri from Amritsar, the holiest city for the Sikh faith. But Puri lost by one lakh votes to Congress MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla. The party had failed similarly in 2014 to get stalwart Arun Jaitley elected from the seat. Former chief minister Amarinder Singh, now with the BJP, and cricketer-turned-politician have also held the seat in the past.
Gadar 2’s actor Sunny Deol is the BJP MP from this border constituency, where the party has also fielded actor Vinod Khanna in the past. In the 2019 elections, Deol defeated Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar, who now heads the BJP’s Punjab unit. Opposition parties have often raked up Deol’s “absence” from his constituency.
Karnataka
The following are the key seats to watch out for in the 2-phase Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka. Polls will be held on April 26 and May 7.
Gulbarga Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge lost the 2019 polls to BJP’s Umesh Jadhav in this SC reserved segment — his first electoral loss in his political life spanning several decades. The octogenarian’s son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani is likely to be fielded this time, according to sources. Kharge, currently the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, was elected to Lok Sabha from here twice. Jadhav has been re-nominated by the BJP.
Hassan It’s the home turf of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda. His grandson Prajwal Revanna is sitting MP and is expected to be the joint candidate of the BJP-JD(S) alliance. The Congress has named 31-year-old Shreyas M Patel, the grandson of former Minister late G Puttaswamy Gowda. Deve Gowda and Puttaswamy Gowda had fought against each other in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the past.
Patel had lost the Holenarsipur seat in Assembly polls last year by about 3,000 votes to Deve Gowda’s son and former Minister and five-time MLA H D Revanna. Puttaswamy Gowda and his daughter-in-law S G Anupama too had contested against Revanna in the past.
Mandya The Vokkaliga dominated seat is known for rivalry between Congress and JD(S) to gain upper hand. BJP too has been putting strong efforts to make inroads over the years.
Multilingual actress turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent candidate backed by the BJP, had won the seat in 2019 by defeating JD(S)’ Nikhil Kumaraswamy (son of former CM H D Kumaraswamy and grandson of Deve Gowda). He was joint candidate of Congress-JD(S) alliance which was then in power in the state. Sumalatha is seeking BJP’s ticket for re-election from the seat that was earlier represented by her late husband M H Ambareesh, a popular film star and an icon in Mandya. However, according to sources, the BJP has alloted the seat to JD(S), which is likely to field Nikhil Kumaraswamy again or former MP C S Puttaraju.
BJP Youth Wing president Tejasvi Surya was elected in 2019 at the age of 28, defeating Congress leader B K Hariprasad.
A BJP bastion for the past more than three decades, former Union Minister late H N Ananth Kumar represented this urban constituency with a sizeable population of Brahmins for a record six times from 1996.
The Congress is likely to field former Jayanagar MLA Sowmya Reddy, daughter of Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy, according to party sources.
Union Minister for Coal and Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, a four time MP, is the sitting Lok Sabha member from here, and has been fielded again. He defeated Congress leader Vinay Kulkarni, in 2014 and 2019 by over one lakh votes.
The Congress is yet to name its candidate.
This is the only constituency in Karnataka from where the Congress won in the 2019 elections. The sitting MP, D K Suresh, who is the brother of state Congress chief and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, has been fielded again.
He defeated former MLA Anitha Kumaraswamy in the 2013 bypoll after her husband and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy resigned from Lok Sabha following his win in the Assembly elections that year, and was re-elected in 2014 general elections.
The BJP-JD(S) combine fielded noted cardiac surgeon C N Manjunath, who is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, in this Vokkaliga-dominated segment. Manjunath, who is contesting on BJP symbol, had headed the state-owned Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research for 17 years before retiring in January this year.
The BJP denied ticket to incumbent MP Pratap Simha and fielded the scion of the erstwhile Mysuru royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, who is entering the poll fray for the first time. It’s the home district of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The Congress is yet to name its candidate.
Senior BJP leader K S Eshwarappa announcing on March 15 that he would contest as an independent has spiced up the poll scene. He has squarely blamed BJP Parliamentary Board member and former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa for his son K E Kantesh not being given ticket to contest the Haveri seat.
Eshwarappa, a former deputy Chief Minister who had also headed the State unit, will take on Yediyurappa’s son and incumbent MP, B Y Raghavendra. The Congress has fielded Geetha Shivarajkumar, wife of leading Kannada actor Shivarajkumar here. Geetha is daughter of former Chief Minister late S Bangarappa and daughter-in-law of Kannada thespian late Dr. Rajkumar.
Arunachal Pradesh
As the election date for the Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Arunachal Pradesh was announced, focus has turned to five key constituencies, where prominent personalities are vying for electoral success.
Simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls will be held in the northeastern state on April 19.
As the countdown to the polls begins, these five constituencies serve as barometers of political sentiment and power play in Arunachal Pradesh.
Located in Tawang district bordering China, Mukto constituency serves as a stronghold for Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who won the seat uncontested in the by-election held in 2010 as a Congress nominee following the demise of his father, former CM Dorjee Khandu. He won the 2014 and 2019 assembly elections uncontested as well. His dominance in Mukto makes this constituency a focal point in the electoral battle.
Situated in Namsai district, Chowkham gains prominence as Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein seeks re-election for the second time. Mein, a seasoned politician who previously represented Lekang constituency, faces a significant challenge amidst public outcry over the PRC issue in 2019, leading to his abandonment of the Lekang seat.
In the Shi-Yomi district, Mechuka constituency is a crucial seat with Assembly Speaker Passang Dorjee Sona in the fray. Sona’s bid for re-election adds intrigue to this constituency, further elevating its significance in the electoral landscape.
Lekang constituency, nestled in Namsai district, holds importance due to its non-tribal voter majority. The denial of party ticket to sitting BJP MLA Junnum Ete Deori and the emergence of Namsai district BJP president Sujana Namchoom as a candidate underscores the political dynamics at play. Domicile verification of aspiring MLA candidates becomes a contentious issue, highlighting the unique electoral dynamics of Lekang.
Papum Pare district’s Sagalee constituency, traditionally a Congress bastion, will witness a fierce electoral battle as former CM Nabam Tuki, also the president of Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC), defends his seat against BJP’s strong contender, technocrat-turned-businessman Ratu Techi. The outcome of this contest will be closely watched as it reflects the shifting political dynamics in the state.
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