Lok Sabha elections: Campaigning for sixth phase ends, voting on May 12

High-decibel campaigning for the penultimate sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 59 constituencies spread across seven states ended on Friday. Polling will be held on Sunday.

Artist Basavaraj poses with is bottle art creation of placing framed portraits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Congress President Rahul Gandhi in narrow necked glass jars. AFP Photo

NEW DELHI: High-decibel campaigning for the penultimate sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 59 constituencies spread across seven states ended on Friday. Polling will be held on Sunday. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader Digvijay Singh and BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur are among 968 candidates in the fray. Voting will be held in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, ten in Haryana, eight seats each in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, seven in Delhi and four in Jharkhand.  In 2014, the BJP had won 45 of these seats, the Trinamool Congress 8, the Congress two and the SP and the LJP one seat each among others. In UP's Sultanpur, BJP has fielded Maneka Gandhi instead of her son and sitting MP Varun Gandhi who won in 2014 by a margin of over one lakh votes. She is contesting against BSP candidate Chandra Bhadra Singh and Congress' Dr Sanjay Sinh. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is in the race from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, currently represented by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. He is pitted against BJP's Nirahua, a Bhojpuri star, while the Congress has not fielded any candidate against him. Madhya Pradesh is expected to witness a tough battle on the eight constituencies including Bhopal and Guna. BJP has fielded terror-accused Pragya Singh Thakur against senior Congress leaders and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal. Congress general secretary in-charge western Uttar Pradesh Jyotiraditya Scindia is seeking another term from Guna, which he has been representing in Lok Sabha since 2002. Scindia, who had won in 2014 by over one lakh votes, will face BJP's KP Yadav. In Bihar, Valmiki Nagar, Paschim Champaran, Purvi Champaran, Sheohar, Vaishali, Gopalganj, Siwan and Maharajganj constituencies will go to polls. Among the seven seats in the national capital, the contest in the North-East Delhi, East Delhi and South Delhi seats is being keenly watched. In 2014, BJP had swept all the seats. In North-East Delhi, Congress has fielded former chief minister Sheila Dikshit against BJP's sitting MP Manoj Tiwari while in East Delhi, former cricketer and BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir is facing AAP's Atishi and three-time Congress MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely. Congress' Vijender Singh, BJP's sitting MP Ramesh Bidhuri and AAP leader Raghav Chadha are in the fray from South Delhi seat. Haryana will witness single-phase polling on all 10 parliamentary constituencies on May 12. BJP had registered landslide victory on seven Lok Sabha seats in Haryana in 2014. The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections started on April 11 and would conclude on May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. So far, voting has been completed for five of the seven phases. Polling was held on Monday for 51 Lok Sabha seats spread across seven states in the fifth phase. In the first four phases, election was held to 91, 96, 117 and 72 seats on April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29 respectively. Polling for the sixth phase will be held on May 12. Voting for the seventh and last phase will take place on May 19. (With inputs from ANI)