ETV Bharat War Room: UP, C'garh & JK gear up for 3rd phase of polls

With 18 seats from three states of North India going to polls in the third phase of 2019 general elections, ETV Bharat brings you all the facts, figures and political permutations pertaining to the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Delhi:As many as 116 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to polls on April 23, across 13 states and two Union Territories (UT) in the third phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The electorate will vote in four seats in Assam, five in Bihar, seven in Chhattisgarh, one in Jammu and Kashmir, 14 in Karnataka, 14 in Maharashtra, six in Odisha, 10 in Uttar Pradesh, and five in West Bengal.

Besides, polling will be held in all seats in Gujarat (26), Kerala (20), Goa (2), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1) and Daman and Diu (1) in the third of the seven-phase election.

Uttar Pradesh
Among the states that are voting on Tuesday, Uttar Pradesh having 80 parliamentary constituencies continues to play a crucial role, so far as the battle for Delhi is concerned. The polling for the third phase is to be held in the Rohilkhand region with a total of 1.76 crore voters slated to exercise their franchise in this phase at 20,116 polling booths to decide the fate of 120 candidates in the fray.

The seats in this phase include Samajwadi Party strongholds like Badaun, Sambhal, Mainpuri, Firozabad and Rampur as well as Aonla, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Etah and Moradabad.

Some of the most important parliamentary constituencies to look out for include Mainpuri, considered to be one of the safest seats for the SP is Mainpuri where SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is the candidate. The party patriarch had won the seat in 2014 general election and remains largely uncontested from the seat which has traditionally been an SP stronghold.

It was in Mainpuri a few days ago that Mulayam Singh shared the stage with BSP president Mayawati, burying the enmity lasting over two decades.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi is pitted against SP's Hemraj Varma in Pilibhit, and the saffron party appears strong in both Pilibhit and Moradabad.

While Congress has decided to go solo this election, by bringing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to the fore, it is likely to attract Brahmin votes who find affirmation of her presumed genetic superiority in the way she looks.

Chhattisgarh

The third phase of polling on April 23 will mark the completion of Lok Sabha elections in the state of Chhattisgarh. A total of 123 candidates are in fray for the seven Lok Sabha seats of Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Korba, Janjgir-Champa (SC), Surguja (ST) and Raigarh (ST) - that is scheduled to go to polls in the third phase.

A total of 1,27,13,816 voters will be deciding the fate of the 123 candidates in fray in the third phase for which 15,408 polling booths have been set up.

One of the highly contested seats going to polls in the third phase from the state includes the high-profile Durg seat, where Congress has fielded its former MLA Pratima Chandrakar, belonging to the influential Kurmi OBC community against BJP's former MLA Vijay Baghel, also from the Kurmi community.

Interestingly, Durg is the only Lok Sabha seat which the Congress won in the state in the 2014 general elections.

Jammu and Kashmir

Six of the 16 Assembly segments in Anantnag Parliamentary constituency are going to polls in the third phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The Assembly segments going to polls on April 23 include- Anantnag, Doru Shahabad, Kokernag, Shangus, Bijbehera and Pahalgam in the constituency spread over four districts of south Kashmir.

A total of 13.93 lakh voters will decide the fate of 18 candidates in fray for the general election 2019.

Some of the major contestants fighting in this phase include former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief G A Mir, Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi and BJP's Mohammad Yousuf.

Following likely security threat, the Election Commission (EC) has reduced the polling by two hours, and the polling will now be held between seven in the morning and four in the evening.