Lok Sabha Election 2024: BJP vs INDIA Bloc as India Votes in 1st Phase – 10 Key Points

The first phase of the 7-phase exercise will see voting for 102 seats across 21 states and Union Territories. This includes five seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, four seats in Bihar, three seats in West Bengal, two seats in Manipur, and one seat each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh.

Additionally, four states — Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh — will also pick new assemblies along with the Lok Sabha. Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32 seats) are having their elections today.

The Prime Minister has set the NDA a target of 400 seats. In the last election, the NDA won 353 seats, an increase of 5 per cent from 2014.

The BJP won 303 seats. The Opposition bloc, INDIA, has been standing together following the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor policy case.

Despite some disarray leading up to the polls, the parties are now up against each other in multiple pockets, flouting the rule of one-on-one contests they guaranteed would push the BJP out. The BJP is hoping to win 22 of the 25 seats in the northeast, sweep the Hindi heartland, Jammu, and Gujarat.

It also aims to flourish at the cost of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in Bengal and make further inroads in Odisha. The Congress projects confidence in its performance and insists it is on the cusp of a comeback in northern states and the south, based on the assembly poll victories in Telangana and Karnataka, and the alliance with DMK in Tamil Nadu.

Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers, one former governor, and a number of key leaders are in the fray today, competing in more than 20 seats. Among them are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Jitendra Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Sanjiv Balian, former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Congress’s Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi and former Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal.

In 2019, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) won 45 of these 102 seats and the NDA 41. Six of the seats have been redrawn as part of delimitation.

The counting of votes will be held on June 4.