Lok Sabha polls begin tomorrow: 102 seats, 21 states and UTs, 1,625 candidates

After months of build-up, the Lok Sabha polls get underway on Friday, with 102 seats spread across 21 states voting. Eleven states and Union Territories will complete polling by the end of Friday, including all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, all five seats in Uttarakhand, 12 constituencies in Rajasthan, five in Maharashtra, and all seats in six Northeastern states and three UTs. The Assemblies in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim are also going to polls. Of the 102 seats, 18 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 11 for Scheduled Tribes.

In 2019, the parties that now constitute the INDIA bloc and the NDA (in its current configuration) each won 48 of these seats, with the unaligned BSP and AIADMK winning three and one seat, respectively. The undivided Shiv Sena and NCP won a seat each. In terms of vote share, the parties of the INDIA bloc secured 41.7% across these seats (excluding the five in Maharashtra, owing to the split in the NCP and Shiv Sena) compared to the NDA’s 34%.

In 2019, the BJP alone won 40 of these 102 seats across 12 states, followed by the DMK at 24 in Tamil Nadu, and the Congress at 15 in eight states.

There will be 1,625 candidates in the fray on Friday. Given that all seats in Tamil Nadu are going to polls, most of the candidates (950) are from the state. Among the parties, the BSP has fielded the most candidates at 86, followed by the BJP at 77, and the Congress at 56.

Of the 251 candidates with criminal cases, 137 are in Tamil Nadu, followed by 28 in Uttar Pradesh. But in terms of the share of candidates with criminal cases, UP tops the first phase list at 35%, followed by Nagaland at 33% and Meghalaya at 30%. Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Manipur have no candidates with pending cases. In six of the states and