04/26/2024
New Delhi, Apr. 26: The voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will take place across 88 seats in 13 states and union territories on Friday.
The votes will be cast in all 20 Lok Sabha seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier, 89 constituencies were expected to vote in this phase. But polling in Madhya Pradesh's Betul was rescheduled after the death of a candidate from the Bahujan Samaj Party. Betul will now vote in the third phase on May 7.
In 2019, the ruling BJP-led NDA won 56 of these 89 seats, while the opposition UPA secured 24.
Among the prominent contestants are Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, BJP's Tejasvi Surya, Hema Malini, and Arun Govil, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor, and former Karnataka chief minister and JDS's HD Kumaraswamy.