Intense campaigning ends for 96 LS seats, Andhra Assembly polls

The election campaign for the May 13 polls, spanning 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories, including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where Assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana, came to an end on Saturday evening.

The key issues that took centre stage during the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections were reservations, appeasement politics, corruption, and jobs.

On Monday, polling will take place in 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, 25 in Andhra Pradesh, 13 in Uttar Pradesh, five in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in Maharashtra, four in Odisha, eight in West Bengal, and one in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP-led NDA currently holds over 40 of these 96 seats.

Voting will also occur in 175 Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, where a three-way contest is underway involving YSRC, the Congress-led INDIA bloc, and the NDA, which includes the BJP, Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP, and Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party (JSP).

Notable candidates include Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP), Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar) and Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar), Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Baharampur, WB), BJP’s Pankaja Munde (Beed, Maharashtra), AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi (Hyderabad, Telangana), and Andhra Pradesh Congress president YS Sharmila (Kadapa).

Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni, whose son is implicated in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, is seeking a third term from Kheri (UP). TMC’s Mahua Moitra, who was expelled from Lok Sabha following cash-for query allegations, is running for re-election from Krishnanagar in West Bengal.