India’s 2024 General Elections Begin: Voting Starts in 21 States and Union Territories
The massive exercise of the 2024 general elections began today with voting in the first phase for 102 constituencies across 21 states and union territories.
Polling started at 7 a.m. today in these 102 seats, which cover the entire states of Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32 seats). In the last 2019 elections, the UPA won 45 of these seats, while the NDA took 41.
According to the Election Commission, there are 1,625 candidates in this first phase, including 1,491 men and 134 women.
Among the key contestants trying their luck are 8 sitting Union Ministers like Nitin Gadkari, Kiren Rijiju, Sarbananda Sonowal, Sanjeev Balyan, Jitendra Singh, Bhupendra Yadav and Arjun Ram Meghwal. Two previous Chief Ministers and one former Governor have also expressed interest in the position.
In the high-profile Coimbatore seat in Tamil Nadu, the state BJP president K Annamalai is the candidate.
Besides the full states of Arunachal and Sikkim, voting is also happening for 2 seats in Assam, 4 in Bihar, 1 in Chhattisgarh, 6 in Madhya Pradesh, 5 in Maharashtra, 2 each in Manipur and Meghalaya, and 1 seat each in Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.
Rajasthan has 12 constituencies voting today, while Tamil Nadu’s 39 seats are also voting in the first phase.
Similarly, in this first round of voting, 8 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, 3 in West Bengal, and one each in Andaman and Nicobar, Jammu and Kashmir, and Tripura are voting.
With voting happening across so many states and constituencies, the massive democratic election process in India has now officially begun. Millions of people are lining up at polling booths to cast their votes. Everyone is closely watching the results from these first few rounds of voting to get an idea of which way the overall election results may go.
