Lok Sabha polls final bout tomorrow: In 57 seats, BJP led Congress 25 to 8 in 2019

After almost 80 days of campaigning, voting in the Lok Sabha elections concludes on Saturday with 57 seats across eight states and Union Territories going to polls. This has been the second-longest parliamentary election since the first Lok Sabha election in 1951-’52.

After the polls close, all eyes will be on the exit polls and the results on June 4. By the end of Saturday, polling will be completed at one go in all 13 seats in Punjab and all four seats in Himachal Pradesh. The other states that will vote are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal — where polling was held across all seven phases — and Jharkhand and Odisha, where Assembly polls are also being held simultaneously.

In 2019, the parties constituting the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling BJP-led NDA won 19 and 30 of these 57 seats, respectively. The BJP alone won 25 of these constituencies. Among the INDIA bloc members, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Congress won the most seats at nine and eight, respectively. Several unaligned parties also bagged several constituencies: the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won four seats in Odisha, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won two in UP, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won two in Punjab.

In terms of vote share, the parties that constitute NDA received 39.03% of the votes compared to the 37.52% vote share of the INDIA bloc parties. In 2014, the NDA won 39 of these seats and the INDIA alliance parties won 11, with 10 going to other parties.

There are 904 candidates in the fray on Saturday. The BSP has fielded the most candidates at 56, followed by the BJP at 51, and the Congress at 31. With all of Punjab voting on Saturday, the state has the most candidates in this phase at 328, followed by 144 candidates in Uttar Pradesh’s 13