The counting of votes for Lok Sabha elections 2024 is underway and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA is leading in counting of postal ballots. The BJP is leading in 238 seats, taking the NDA lead to 290, while the Congress is leading in 94 seats. The INDIA bloc is leading in 216 seats as per initial counting. The half-way mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha is 272.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is eyeing a record-equalling third straight term in power amid the opposition INDIA bloc’s hope of springing a surprise. The Lok Sabha election results today will bring down the curtain on the marathon polling exercise that stretched over 80 days.
KEY CANDIDATES: WHO’s LEADING, WHO’s TRAILING?
- Awaited — Narendra Modi, BJP, Varanasi, UP
- Awaited — Amit Shah, BJP, Gandhinagar, Gujarat
- Leading — Rahul Gandhi, Congress, Wayanad, Kerala
- Leading — Rahul Gandhi, Congress, Raebareli, UP
- Leading — Nitin Gadkari, BJP, Nagpur, Maharashtra
- Leading — Rajnath Singh, BJP, Lucknow, UP
- Awaited — Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, Congress, Baharampur, West Bengal
- Leading — Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party, Kannauj, UP
- Awaited — Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP, Vidisha, MPA
- Awaited — Mahua Moitra, TMC, Krishnanagar, West Bengal
- Awaited — Piyush Goyal, BJP, Mumbai North, Maharashtra
- Trailing — Smriti Irani, BJP, Amethi, UP
- Awaited — O Panneerselvam, Independent, Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu
- Leading — Deepender Hooda, Congress, Rohtak, Haryana
- Awaited — Kanhaiya Kumar, Congress, North East Delhi, Delhi
- Trailing — Naveen Jindal, BJP, Kurukshetra, Haryana
- Leading — Asaduddin Owaisi, AIMIM, Hyderabad, Telangana
- Awaited — Narayan Rane, BJP, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Maharashtra
- Awaited — Digvijaya Singh, Congress, Rajgarh, MP
- Awaited — Shashi Tharoor, Congress, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
- Awaited — Pappu Yadav, Independent, Purnia, Bihar
- Awaited — Rajeev Chandrashekhar, BJP, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
- Awaited — Om Birla, BJP, Kota, Rajasthan
- Awaited — Nakul Nath, Congress, Chindwara, MP
- Awaited — Hema Malini, BJP, Mathura, UP
- Awaited — HD Kumaraswamy, JDS, Mandya, Karnataka
- Awaited — Bhupesh Baghel, Congress, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh
- Trailing — Arun Govil, BJP, Meerut, UP
- Awaited — Md Salim, CPM, Murshidabad, West Bengal
- Trailing — Omar Abdullah, National Conference, Baramulla, J&K
- Awaited — YS Sharmila, Congress, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh
- Awaited — Yusuf Pathan, TMC, Baharampur, West Bengal
- Awaited — Dev, TMC, Ghatal, West Bengal
- Awaited — Raj Babbar, Congress, Gurgaon, Haryana
- Awaited — Somnath Bharti, AAP, New Delhi, Delhi
- Awaited — Kangana Ranaut, BJP, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
- Trailing — Mehbooba Mufti, PDP, Anantnag-Rajouri, J&K
- Awaited — Ravi Kishan, BJP, Gorakhpur, UP
- Awaited — Sougata Ray, TMC, Dum Dum, West Bengal
- Awaited — Vikramaditya Singh, Congress, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
- Leading — Chandrababu Naidu, TDP, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh
- Leading — Pawan Kalyan, Jana Sena, Pithapuram, Andhra Pradesh
- Leading — Prajwal Revanna, JDS, Hassan, Karnataka
- Leading — Sunetra Pawar, Ajit Pawar NCP, Baramati, Maharashtra
- Trailing — Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar NCP, Baramati, Maharashtra
- Leading — Bansuri Swaraj, BJP, New Delhi, Delhi
- Leading — Tejasvi Surya, BJP, Bangalore South, Karnataka
- Leading — Jyotiraditya Scindia, BJP, Guna, MP
- Trailing — K Annamalai, BJP, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
- Leading — Karti Chidambaram, Congress, Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu
- Leading — Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, DMK, Thoothukkudi, Tamil Nadu
VARANASI LOK SABHA SEAT AMONG MOST WATCHED
While PM Narendra Modi is certain to win in Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, all eyes are on the victory margin. The BJP had this time called to make the PM victorious from the temple town with 10 lakh votes.
In a video message to the voters of Varanasi, the prime minister had said representing Kashi, the cultural capital of the world and the land of music and ‘Shastrarth’ (debate), in Parliament is possible only due to the infinite grace of Baba Vishwanath and the blessings of the people of the holy city.
Modi had won the election from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In this year’s election, he is being challenged by Congress candidate Ajay Rai.
WHAT EXIT POLLS SAID
Even though most exit polls, including the News18 Mega Exit Poll, have predicted the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to win, a lot is at stake for the ruling alliance in terms of the scale of victory and new pockets of influence. The Opposition’s stakes are higher still amid its reducing national footprint.
Exit polls have been unanimous in their prediction that the NDA is closer to realising Modi’s ambitious target of “400 paar” for his alliance than the INDIA bloc is to crossing even the 180 mark, one-third of the total number of seats.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission (EC).
INDIA bloc leaders, who have been raising doubts over the electronic voting machines (EVMs), have accused the Prime Minister of sending a signal to the bureaucracy through these “fantasy” exit polls and marched to the EC, urging the poll watchdog to follow the counting guidelines.
In its counter-attack, the BJP has accused its rivals of trying to undermine the integrity of India’s electoral process and asked the EC to prevent any attempt of “violence and unrest” during the counting of votes.
ELECTION CAMPAIGN RECAP
PM Modi framed the BJP’s campaign around the Opposition’s “appeasement politics”, accusing the Congress and its allies of handing over a chunk of the reservation meant for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) to Muslims and allegedly eying people’s family assets to further its “redistribution of wealth” agenda.
The issues of national and cultural pride, the government’s welfare schemes and the overall political stability and economic growth also figured prominently in the speeches of BJP leaders, even though they were accused by the Opposition of running a divisive and communal campaign to polarise votes.
The EC has dismissed the Opposition’s attack on its conduct of polls, with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar daring it on Monday to share evidence of attempts to influence the polling process.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
The results will show if the Congress has it in its organisation and leadership to challenge the BJP amid its reducing footprint across the country since 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It has failed to get even the main Opposition party status in two consecutive Lok Sabha polls and has been reduced to a pale shadow of itself in a number of states, especially in the Hindi heartland.
Its leaders, including president Mallikarjun Kharge and principal campaigner Rahul Gandhi, have claimed that their alliance will get 295 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, marking an end of the Modi era.
INDIA bloc leaders believe that their alliance has been able to shape the poll narrative around its planks of welfarism and an alleged threat to the Constitution from an all-powerful saffron onslaught, and will get popular support.
PM Narendra Modi will equal the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of leading his party to three straight electoral victories if the BJP retains power.
An uncertain future also hangs over the fate of the Left, besides many regional parties including the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and YSR Congress, which are in power in West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
Modi has spearheaded a concerted BJP push to gain further in strength in the two eastern states, where the party surprised everyone by emerging as the powerful second force in 2019, and the exit polls have suggested that it may topple the two regional parties from the top position in these polls.
Another issue that has drawn the limelight is whether the BJP will be able to emerge as a strong force in Tamil Nadu and the Left-ruled Kerala, two states where it has currently no seats but is predicted to win a few this time.
A poor show by the Left will further darken its prospects nationwide as Kerala is the only state where it remains a strong force after being knocked of reckoning in its former strongholds of Bengal and Tripura.
BIG NAMES TO WATCH
The results are also expected to spell out the people’s verdict on the fate of regional stalwarts like Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, whose parties have joined hands with the BJP and who have run an intense campaign to win over people’s support for their factions.
The verdict will also be out on a number of Union ministers, including Piyush Goyal, Bhupender Yadav, Sarbananda Sonowal and Dharmendra Pradhan, all Rajya Sabha members asked by the BJP to contest the polls, and former chief ministers, such as the BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Basavaraj Bommai, Trivendra Singh Rawat and the Congress’s Digvijay Singh and Bhupesh Baghel.
Besides Modi, who contested the election from Varanasi for a third straight term, senior members of his cabinet, such as Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, are in the fray, and the margins of their win will be watched out for as well.
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