New Delhi: Campaigning for the fiercely-fought Lok Sabha election came to an end on Friday evening.
The fate of 918 candidates contesting from 59 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across seven states and one Union Territory will be sealed at the end of voting on May 19, which will see the conclusion to the seventh and the last phase of the 2019 general polls.
Voting in this phase will take place for 13 seats each in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, nine in West Bengal, eight each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, all four seats in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and in the lone seat of Chandigarh.
So far, polling in 483 constituencies is over.
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Over 10.01 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the last round of voting.
West Bengal saw the Election Commission cracking the whip and invoking Article 324 of the Indian Constitution to end the campaigning on Thursday, 10 pm following large scale poll-related violence including a massive clash between All India Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party workers during a roadshow of Amit Shah in Kolkata on Wednesday.
This phase will see voting in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is pitted against Congress candidate Ajay Rai, Samajwadi Party nominee Shalini Yadav and 23 others. One more high profile seat where voting will be held on May 19 is Patna Sahib where incumbent Lok Sabha MP Shatrughan Sinha is challenging his former party colleague and Union Law & Justice and Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Sinha had won from Patna Sahib in 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket but quit the party in March 2019 and joined the Congress.
Other key leaders whose fortunes will be decided in the final phase are Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, who is contesting from Ferozepur, his wife, and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur from Bhatinda, another Union Minister Hardeep Puri from Amritsar and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's wife Praneet Kaur from Patiala, three-time MP Anurag Thakur from Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur, former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren (Dumka) and former union minister P K Bansal, who faces sitting MP Kirron Kher in Chandigarh.
Results for what is being touted as one of the most interesting polls held in India in a long time will be announced on May 23.
