India Lok Sabha polls phase 5: voting underway in 49 seats

Time Digital Report: Indians today began voting in the fifth phase of polling in the national elections covering 49 Lok Sabha seats in eight states and union territories with the electoral fate of political heavyweights like Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and National Conference leader Omar Abdulla at stake.

In terms of the number of seats, this is the smallest phase of the seven-week-long election process. The opening phase of polling, held on April 19, was the biggest, covering 102 seats.

Voting in the fifth phase is being held in around 94,732 polling stations spread across Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Mega metropolitan cities like Mumbai, India's financial hub, nearby Thane, Lucknow, capital city of the most populous state Uttar Pradesh, are going to polls for the first time in this phase which have in the past suffered from urban voter' apathy, prompting the Election Commission yesterday to especially call upon these city-dwellers to turn out in higher numbers.

In an early morning message posted on his X, former Twitter, ahead of the start of polling today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking to extend his term for a rare third term, urged the voters "in record numbers." He specially urged the women and young voters to exercise their franchise.

After the fifth phase, voting in 428 Lok Sabha constituencies, out of a total of 543, will be completed. Polling in the sixth and seventh and final phase are scheduled for May 25 and June 1 before the votes are counted on June 4.

Besides Rahul Gandhi, Rajnath Singh and Omar, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is among the 695 candidates who will be in fray in the fifth phase.

The voter turnout in the fifth phase will once again be in focus after the turnout in the same seats in the first three phases has been less than compared to 2019. However, that trend was broken in the fourth phase on May 13 when the overall voter turnout in 96 constituencies was 69.16 percent, slightly higher than the turnout in the same seats in 2019, as per the EC data.

Until now, the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 have seen the voter turnout of about 66.95 percent. Around 451 million people have already voted in the first four phases of polling, according to the EC.