Phase 2 of Lok Sabha polls: 89 seats, of which BJP had won 55, Congress 18

In the second phase of voting for the Lok Sabha elections, 89 seats across 12 states and UTs will go to polls on Friday. By the end of the day, a third of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats — including all the seats in Kerala, Rajasthan, Manipur and Tripura, and 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka — will have completed polling. In Outer Manipur, 13 Assembly segments are voting in the second phase; the remaining 15 had voted in the first phase along with the Inner Manipur seat.

Of the 89 seats, 9 and 7 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, respectively.

In 2019, the parties that now constitute the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling NDA had won 61 and 23 of these seats, the undivided Shiv Sena’s 4 seats and the BSP’s 1 seat. In terms of vote share, the NDA had got 50.73% of the votes compared to the INDIA bloc’s 41.94% (excluding the votes of the Shiv Sena and NCP, both of which were united at the time).

The BJP alone had won 55 of these 89 seats (including then Independents Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambarish and Amravati MP Navneet Rana, who joined the BJP recently), with the Congress far behind at 18.

In 2014, the NDA had won 46 of these seats and the INDIA bloc parties 35, with eight going to other parties.

There will be a total 1,210 candidates in the fray on Friday. The BSP has fielded the most candidates in this phase at 74, followed by the BJP at 69 and the Congress at 68. Karnataka, with 14 seats going to polls, has the most candidates at 247, followed by Maharashtra (8 seats) at 204 and Kerala (all its 20 seats) at 189.

Of the 250 candidates with criminal cases, the most are in Kerala at 67, followed by Maharashtra at 49 and Karnataka at 39. In Kerala, more than a third of all the candidates are facing criminal