Polling on 89 seats including all seats of Gujarat and Punjab today

Ahmedabad, 29 April, 2014

The April leg of the multi-phase Indian elections will end Wednesday on a high note, sealing the electoral fortunes of heavyweights Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi and Rajnath Singh.

Nearly 140 million voters will have their say in 89 seats across seven states and two Union Territories — Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu — in phase 7 of polling. Overall, 1,295 candidates are in the fray.

Of these 89 seats, the Congress had won 37 in 2009; the BJP 21; the Trinamool Congress and the Janata Dal (United) five each; the CPI(M), Shiromani Akali Dal and the Samajwadi Party four each.

After phase 7, polling will end for 438 of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats, leaving 105 to be decided in two phases in May.

Gujarat’s all 26 Lok Sabha seats will go for polling. Polling ends in one go in Punjab’s 13 seats.

The first round of polling in Andhra Pradesh is simultaneously for the Lok Sabha (17 seats) and assembly (119 seats) — all in Telangana region.

Uttar Pradesh will see polling for 14 seats, the third largest chunk in this phase. BJP president Singh is contesting from the prestigious Lucknow seat.

In West Bengal, voters will exercise their franchise in nine seats including Howrah, Sreerampur and Birbhum. The BJP has fielded music composer Bappi Lahiri from Sreerampur against incumbent Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee.

In Bihar, the big contest is in Madhepura, which is among the seven seats going to polls. Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav is in the fray from Madhepura.

In Jammu and Kashmir, polling will be held for the key Srinagar seat featuring Union minister and National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, father of chief minister Omar Abdullah.

The fight in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is for one seat each.