LOK SABHA ELECTIONS FROM 19 APRIL, RESULTS ON 4 JUNE

Voting will take place in seven phases in three states, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar. Delhi will vote on 25 May, while PM Modi's Varanasi constituency will vote on 1 June.

- RAHUL CHHABRA

The general elections for India’s 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases between 19 April and 1 June, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced on Saturday. The counting will be held on 4 June, the day which will decide if Prime Minister Narendra Modi will score a hat-trick of coming to power and equal Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of three straight stints as PM.

As the CEC announced the 44-day-long election schedule to elect the 18th Lok Sabha, the Model Code of Conduct kicked in immediately. The first parliamentary election on Jammu and Kashmir’s five seats after the abrogation of Article 370 will be held in five phases, between 19 April and 20 May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency will go to election on 1 June in the 7th phase, Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad will go to election on 26 April in the 2nd phase, Amethi and Rae Bareli will go to election on 20 May in the 5th phase and national capital Delhi will go to election on 25 May in the 6th phase.

Other high profile constituencies like Amit Shah’s Gandhinagar will go to election on 7 May, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s Lucknow seat will see voting on 20 May, Nitin Gadkari’s Nagpur seat on 19 April and Civil Aviation Minister

Jyotiraditya Scindia’s Guna seat on 7 May.
West Bengal’s Basirhat constituency, which houses the Sandeshkhali area, in news for the recent flare-up related to alleged atrocities against women and TMC MLA Shahjahan Sheikh, will elect its MP in the 7th phase of polling on 1 June.

Voting will take place in all seven phases in three states—Uttar Pradesh (80 seats), West Bengal (42) and Bihar (40). The elections will be held in five phases in Maharashtra and J&K; four phases in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand; three phases in Chhattisgarh and Assam; two phases in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Manipur and Tripura.