Voting for the second last phase of the Lok Sabha elections has started across six states and two Union Territories. Over 11 crore voters will decide the fate of 889 candidates contesting in Phase-6 of the general elections across 58 seats.
The penultimate phase will see high-profile candidates on several seats, including BJP leaders Maneka Gandhi, Manoj Tiwari, Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti, Congress's Kanhaiya Kumar, among others.
The last phase of voting will take place on June 2, following which counting of votes will take place on June 4.
Polling is scheduled in 58 Lok Sabha across Haryana (10), Bihar (8), Jharkhand (4), Odisha (6), Uttar Pradesh (14), West Bengal (8), Delhi (7) and Jammu and Kashmir (1).
Polling on 42 Assembly constituencies for the Odisha State Legislative Assembly will also take place simultaneously.
All seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi -- North East Delhi, North West Delhi, Chandni Chowk, South Delhi, East Delhi, West Delhi, New Delhi -- will go to polls in this phase.
BJP's Manoj Tiwari, Bansuri Swaraj, Congress's Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj, and Aam Aadmi Party's Somnath Bharti are among the prominent candidates in the fray in the national capital.
All 10 seats in Haryana will also go to polls in Phase 6. Prominent candidates in fray include former Chief Minister and BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar, who is contesting from Karnal. BJP's Rao Inderjit Singh and Naveen Jindal are also in fray from Gurugram and Kurukshetra seats, respectively.
In West Bengal, voting will be held in the tribal belt Jangal Mahal region, spanning five districts. A hotspot for identity politics, the region sends eight representatives to Lok Sabha from Tamluk, Kanthi, Ghatal, Jhargram, Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura, and Bishnupur seats. Out of the eight seats, the BJP won five and TMC bagged three in the 2019 polls.
Soumendu Adhikari, the brother of Suvendu Adhikari, has been fielded from Kanthi, considered the backyard of the senior BJP leader.
In Tamluk, former judge of Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay is fighting on a BJP ticket against TMC's young turk Debangshu Bhattacharya, known for composing the "Khela Hobe" song for the party in the 2021 assembly polls.
Polling will also take place in Anantnag-Rajouri constituency in Jammu and Kashmir. Polling was originally slated for May 7 but the Election Commission postponed it citing adverse weather conditions.
In 2019, the Congress failed to win any of these 58 seats in Phase 6 of polling. The BJP won 40 seats while its NDA allies won 5 seats.
In terms of vote share, the BJP-led NDA got 51.36 per cent of the vote share. The INDIA bloc parties could manage 28.66 per cent vote share in Phase 6 of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
By the end of this phase, polling on 486 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats will conclude. In the last phase, polling will happen on the remaining 57 seats.
