Lok Sabha polls Phase 4 tomorrow: In 2019, it was BJP ahead, closely followed by non-aligned parties

Kicking off the second half of the Lok Sabha elections, 96 constituencies in 10 states and Union Territories (UTs) will go to polls on Monday.

After Phase 4, polling will be over in 379 seats and three states: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is also holding Assembly elections, as is Odisha, where polling begins on Monday.

In 2019, the parties constituting the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling NDA had won 11 and 47 of these 96 seats. The BJP won 42 of these seats, with the Congress far behind at six.

Several non-aligned parties won a considerable chunk of these constituencies. Andhra’s ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) won 22 constituencies, Telangana’s former ruling party Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) won nine, and the AIMIM and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won two each. The undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena won one and two seats, respectively.

In terms of vote share, the parties that constitute NDA received 40.34% of the votes compared to the 23.73% of the INDIA alliance parties (excluding the votes of the Shiv Sena and NCP, both of which were united at the time).

In 2014, the NDA won 56 of these seats and the INDIA bloc parties 11, with 29 going to other parties.

There will be 1,717 candidates in the fray on Monday. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded the most candidates at 92, followed by the BJP at 70, the Congress at 61, and the YSRCP at 25. With all 17 and 25 parliamentary seats in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, respectively, going to polls, the states have the most candidates overall at 525 and 454, followed by Maharashtra’s 298 candidates in 11 seats, and Uttar Pradesh’s 130 in 13 seats.

Of the 360 candidates facing criminal cases, Telangana has the most at 104,