The Election Commission of India announced on Saturday the much-awaited schedule for the Lok Sabha polls, as well as assembly and bypoll contests in several states.
Looking towards the East and Northeast, West Bengal, which is infamous for poll-related violence, will see voting in all seven phases of the general elections: April 19, 26, May 7, 13, 20, 25, and June 1.
Odisha will vote on May 13, 20, 25, and June 1, or the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th phases of the Lok Sabha polls.
Assam will see voting on April 19, 26, and May 7, in the first three phases of the general elections.
Among the seven northeastern states, five will vote in a single phase on April 19. However, Tripura and Manipur will have polling in the first two phases: April 19 and 26.
The counting of votes across the country will take place on June 4.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said there are as many as 97 crore eligible voters in India, of which 1.8 crore will be first-time voters.
He said 10.5 lakh polling stations will be set up for the elections with 1.5 crore polling officials and security staff, 55 lakh EVMs, and 4 lakh vehicles.
In 2019, the Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19. The results were declared on May 23.
West Bengal
Trinamool Congress chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently declared that seat-sharing talks with the Congress had failed and her party would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls alone in the state.
In 2019, Trinamool bagged 22 seats compared to the BJP’s 18, with respective vote percentages of 43.3 and 40.7. But in 2021, Mamata Banerjee led the TMC to a landslide victory in the assembly elections, securing an impressive 215 seats.
Despite the BJP’s vigorous campaigning, it only managed to get 77 seats. This, though, was a significant improvement on the party’s 2016 tally of a mere three seats.
The state sends the third-highest number of representatives to the 543-member Lok Sabha, trailing only Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48).
Odisha
Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 assembly constituencies.
In 2019, the BJD won 12 Lok Sabha seats, while the BJP got eight and the Congress secured one. In the assembly elections the same year, the BJD bagged 112 seats, while the BJP won 23, and the Congress got nine.
The bonhomie between Patnaik and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an open secret. While PM Modi has hailed Patnaik as a “Lokpriya (popular)" chief minister, the latter has said that the prime minister had set the course for India to become “an economic powerhouse".
Despite not being part of the ruling coalition, the Biju Janata Dal has voted with the government on contentious issues such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Goods, and Services Tax (GST), demonetisation, and the proposal for ‘one nation, one election’, as well as the polls for the President’s post, both in 2017 and 2022.
The two parties were allies from 1998 until 2009. Prior to becoming the chief minister, Naveen Patnaik was a union minister in late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet in the 1990s.
Assam
A key state, Assam is the gateway to the Northeast and shares international boundaries with Bangladesh and Bhutan. Before 2014, the Congress had a substantial hold but, after that, the BJP has consolidated itself in the state’s tumultuous identity politics, stemming from the ULFA movement that was partially resolved last year after 44 years of insurgency.
Also, this will be the first poll in Assam after the Election Commission of India (ECI) carried out the delimitation exercise for the state last year, which was strongly criticised by the opposition parties alleging that it was done to help the ruling BJP. There are a total of 14 Lok Sabha constituencies and 126 assembly segments in the state, where the BJP is in power.
The main contest will be between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the opposition INDIA bloc.
The BJP is fighting in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL). The INDIA bloc, meanwhile, is contesting alongside Assam Jatiya Parishad and the CPI(M). Other minor parties in the play include the AAP, TMC, National People’s Party, AIUDF, and Bodoland People’s Front.
The BJP will be contesting 11 seats while it has given two seats to the AGP and one to the UPPL. The saffron party will be contesting on the “double engine development" plank with the tagline ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai’ in focus.
The Congress, meanwhile, has announced candidates for 12 out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats. It has offered one seat to Assam Jatiya Parishad, while there is no decision yet on the remaining constituency. One of the prominent names contesting is Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, who has got a ticket from Jorhat.
In the 2019 general election, the BJP won nine out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats while the Congress won three, AIUDF bagged one seat, while another was won by an Independent. This was the saffron party’s highest tally in the state yet, while the Congress registered a decline in vote share.
The BJP had a vote share of 36.1 per cent, while the Congress and AIUDF had 35.4 per cent and 7.8 per cent, respectively.
Northeast
Of the seven northeastern states, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Tripura, have two Lok Sabha seats each, while Mizoram, Nagaland, and Sikkim have one each.
The region holds importance due to its location and the boundaries it shares with neighbouring nations such as China.
The states were previously primarily led by regional parties, but after the 2014 and 2019 general elections, the BJP has slowly established a firm footing in these parts.
While running majority governments in Manipur, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP is also a partner in the ruling coalitions in Meghalaya and Nagaland. The only state in the region currently where the saffron party is in the opposition in Mizoram.
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