Lok Sabha elections: What to watch out for in first phase of polling?

The 44-day-long seven-phase Lok Sabha elections 2024 beings today with 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and union territories going to polls. Voting is taking place in all the 39 Lok Sabha of Tamil Nadu, all the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand, 12 Lok Sabha seats of Rajasthan mainly from Sekhawati region, eight seats in Western UP, six seats of Madhya Pradesh including the prestigious Chhindwara seat which Congress has never lost, five seats each in Assam and the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, four seats in Bihar, 3 seats in West Bengal.

Besides these, two seats each of states in the North-East - Arunachal, Manipur and Meghalaya - will also vote in the first phase. Voters will also cast their votes for one Lok Sabha seat each in Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshdweep, Puducherry, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu and Kashmir. It is important to note that the two states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh will also be voting to elect their new state government in the first phase of voting.

It is generally believed that the first of poll sets the tone for the remaining phases of voting. I am not sure if this is true or not, as parties have different levels of support base in different states and different regions, BJP being more popular in North Indian states compared to the Southern states, while regional parties being much stronger in South and Eastern India. But going by the past results, it seems the first phase of election would witness an interesting contest between the two main alliances, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on one hand and the Congress-led INDIA alliance on the other. Reasons being simple, during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, both the alliances were in serious contest, winning 46 seats each in these constituencies. Plus, things have not changed much in the states and constituencies where voters are casting their vote today.

A glimpse of the 2019 results indicates that in terms of the electoral strength, the two alliances seem equally strong in the first phase of election, 46 seats have been won each by parties’ part of the present INDIA alliance as well as the BJP-led NDA alliance during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, in terms of vote share, the NDA seems to have a slight edge (43%) over the INDIA alliance (39%). Of the eight Lok Sabha seats of Western UP which will go to polls today, 5 have been held by the BSP. Hence, stakes are high for BSP for defending these seats. Overall, there may not have been big changes in these 102 seats, but there is a big change in alliance pattern on UP between 2019 and 2024. In 2019, the BSP was in alliance with the Samajwadi Party while in 2024, BSP is contesting elections alone while SP has formed an alliance with Congress. The big question is, can BSP manage to hold on to its tally?