Lok Sabha Elections: Last phase of voting kicks off with high-stake risk for all parties

For the seventh phase of 2024 Lok Sabha elections voting will take place for 57 Lok Sabha seats across seven states and one UT.

In a relay race, for the team aiming to be victorious, every runner becomes important and they need to put in their best effort to win the race. In fact, the last runner of the team, whether they are leading or trailing, needs to make an extra, similarly political parties have made their best effort to maximize their electoral gains in the seventh phase of 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

On Saturday (June 1), voting will take place for 57 Lok Sabha seats across seven states and one UT. Polling will begin for 13 Lok Sabha seats in both UP and Punjab, 9 Lok Sabha seats of West Bengal, 8 Lok Sabha seats of Bihar, 6 seats of Odisha, 4 seats of Himachal Pradesh, 3 seats of Jharkhand and the lone seat of Chandigarh. This phase too witnessed intense campaigning by all political parties.

The political parties are working hard in the last leg of elections because stakes are high for all though in varying degrees. The BJP is relatively weaker in the last phase of elections, defending only 25 of the 57 seats, with 34.7% votes, while it allies [JD (U), Rashtriya Lok Manch, Apana Dal and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party] will be defending four Lok Sabha seats.

In this phase of voting, Congress would be defending the eight Lok Sabha seats it had won in Punjab. Its allies will be defending two seats won by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and AAP (Sangroor) in Punjab in the last phase of voting. (AAP lost this seat in the bye-election and Simranjit Singh Maan of Akali Dal was the winner).

The Akali Dal which contested the 2019 Lok Sabha in alliance with BJP would also be defending two seats in Punjab.

While it is difficult to say which party stands to gain and which party seems to be losing ground in the seats which goes to poll but the nature of contest in Punjab seems to have completely changed—from the Congress and Akali-BJP alliance contest in 2019, it is now the AAP-Congress battle in Punjab, SAD seems to have lost the momentum in this election after having broken its alliance from BJP.

The entire Poorvanchal goes to poll in the last phase where BSP had some presence in earlier elections. The BSP will be defending two seats; Ghosi and Ghazipur in UP which it had won in alliance with SP.

It is important to note that the regional parties like Trinmool Congress (TMC) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) also have lots of stake in the last phase as TMC would be defending all the 9 seats which goes to poll in this phase while BJD would be defending four of the six Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.

The nine seats which goes to poll in West Bengal today is the strongest for TMC as it had won all nine with more than 50% vote share in 2019. But it should be noted that the BJP has put in a lot of effort to upset TMC’s calculations. A tough battle is on the cards, and it is not going to be easy for the TMC to defend all these nine seats.

It may also not be easy for the NDA to defend all its eight seats in Bihar, given the fact that BJP allies JD(U) seems to have lost some ground in the state.

The battle ground in Odisha also seems to have changed a little bit, seems slightly more slippery for the BJD.

While all the limelight will be on the 57 Lok Sabha seats, it is important to mention that voting for bye-elections for six assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh will also take place. The fate of the Congress government in the state hangs on the results of these six assembly seats.

These are latest trends before the voting takes place. It is still not clear what issues will be on top of their mind when they cast their vote. We will need to wait for June 4^th to figure out what issues connected most with the voters.