One-third of polls to be completed by end of day

People in 95 constituencies spread over Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Puducherry will vote in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday. AIADMK had won 36, BJP 27 and Congress 12 in 2014.
Puducherry will be the only place to have single-phase polling, after the poll panel postponed the election to Vellore in TN, where the remaining 38 seats will see voting along with 18 assembly bypolls, the outcome of which could impact the longevity of the Palaniswami government. Polling in Tripura (East) too has been postponed.

Among prominent contestants in TN are DMK’s Kanimozhi, who takes on BJP’s Tamilisai Soundararajan in Thoothukkudi, Karti Chidambaram in Sivaganga and Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan in Kanyakumari. Eight seats of west UP going to the polls in the second phase were won by BJP in 2014. This is the BSP belt and the party will contest seven seats with support of alliance partners SP and RLD. RLD has a candidate in Mathura against Hema Malini. The phase will determine if SP’s core base of Yadavs will vote for BSP.

A failure will affect the alliance in the remaining phases. Congress is hopeful of winning Fatehpur Sikri, where Raj Babbar is in the fray. BJP is said to be on a strong wicket in Agra and Hathras. Other seats include Aligarh, Moradabad, Nagina and Amroha, where Danish Ali of BSP is a contestant.

Polling in half of the 28 seats in Karnataka will also be held. The area includes Vokkaliga belt in the south and Old Mysuru. JDS is strong in the area and its alliance with Congress will be on test. HD Deve Gowda (Tumkur), M Veerappa Moily (Chikkaballapur), DV Sadanand Gowda (Bengaluru North) and Tejasvi Surya (Bangalore South), Gowda’s grandsons Prajwal Revanna (Hassan) and Nikhil Kumaraswamy (Mandya) are prominent candidates.

It will be a contest of Rajputs in Udhampur, where the grandson of Raja Hari Singh takes on Union minister Jitendra Singh. NC leader and fourtime J&K CM Farooq Abdullah is in the fray from the Srinagar seat.

In Assam, Congress’ Sushmita Deb will try to retain Silchar. BJP is battling to retain Nagaon and Mangladoi, while making attempts to win Silchar and Karimganj (AIUDF). None of the five Bihar seats belong to BJP’s 2014 kitty. JDU had won Purnea and Tariq Anwar is contesting to retain Katihar on a Congress ticket. Kishanganj, Banka and Araria are the other seats.

Darjeeling (BJP), Jalpaiguri (Trinamool) and Raiganj (CPM) will also go to the polls. Congress is hopeful of winning Raiganj where it has Deepa Dasmunshi, who had lost to Mohammad Salim (CPM) in 2014. BJP is hopeful of retaining Darjeeling, banking on the antagonism of Gorkhas against Trinamool. In Jalpaiguri, Trinamool appears stronger than BJP.