Voting was held in 88 constituencies across 13 states and Union Territories amid a furious row between the Congress and the BJP over manifesto and inheritance tax. For Kerala, Rajasthan and Tripura, polling is over.Ā Reports say that the polls saw 63% turnout.Key candidates for this round included the Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, KC Venugopal, Bhupesh Baghel. and Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot, BJP’s Union minister Rajeev ChandrasekharĀ — up against Congress’s Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram; actors Hema Malini, and Arun Govil from 1980s iconic serial Ramayan, senior BJP leader Tejasvi Surya and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
For both BJP and the Opposition, the most crucial states in this phase were Karnataka and Kerala. In 2019, BJP won 25 of Karnataka’s 28 Lok Sabha seats, but the Congress clinched a win in the last assembly election. The party is hoping to do well amid concerns about delimitation and the disadvantage southern states could face after it.
With north, west and northeast India saturated, the BJP is hoping to expand in the south and east in their quest for 370 seats. The party had won 303 seats in 2019, a majority of them from the Hindi heartland and bastions new and old, including Gujarat and the northeast.
The next phase of election is due on May 7. The counting of votes will be held on June 4 ā three days after the seventh and last phase of election on June 1.