General Lok Sabha 2019 – Candidates, Schedule, Opinion Poll

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections are around the corner. The elections is to be scheduled in 7 phases and will begin from 11 April continuing till 19 May 2019. This is the 17th Lok Sabha elections. The vote counting will begin on 23 May, 2019 and the results will be published the same day. A majority of 272 seats will be required out of 543 seats to win the elections

The major parties contesting the election this time would be BJP and Congress. People have been having high speculations regarding the winning. While some have been favouring BJP, some are in strong support for Congress. Well, the time itself will tell which party will be winning over the elections.

Phase I

The elections for Phase I will take place on 11 April around 91 Lok Sabha constituencies of 20 states. The elections of Phase I along with their constituencies are as follows,

• Andhra Pradesh (25)
• Arunachal Pradesh (2)
• Assam (5)
• Bihar (4)
• Chattisgarh (1)
• Jammu and Kashmir (2)
• Maharashtra (7)
• Manipur (1)
• Meghalaya (2)
• Mizoram (1)
• Nagaland (1)
• Odisha (4)
• Sikkim (I)
• Telangana (17)
• Tripura (1)
• Uttar Pradesh (8)
• Uttarakhand (5)
• West Bengal (2)
• Andaman (1)
• Lakshadweep (1)

Phase II

The phase II elections will take place on 18 April for 97 Lok Sabha constituencies around 13 states which are as follows

• Assam (5)
• Bihar (5)
• Chhattisgarh (5)
• Jammu and Kashmir (2)
• Karnataka (14)
• Maharashtra (10)
• Manipur (1)
• Odisha (5)
• Tamil Nadu (39)
• Tripura (1)
• Uttar Pradesh (8)
• West Bengal (3)
• Puducherry (1)

Phase III

The elections for Phase III will take place on 23 April for 115 Lok Sabha constituencies around 14 states mentioned as follows

• Assam (4)
• Bihar (5)
• Chattisgarh (7)
• Gujarat (26)
• Goa (2)
• Jammu and Kashmir (1)
• Karnataka (14)
• Kerala (20)
• Maharashtra (14)
• Odisha (6)
• Uttar Pradesh (10)
• West Bengal (5)
• Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1)
• Daman and Diu (1)

Phase IV

The elections for Phase IV will take place on 29 April for 71 Lok Sabha constituencies around 9 states mentioned as follows

• Bihar (5)
• Jammu and Kashmir (1)
• Jharkhand (3)
• Madhya Pradesh (6)
• Maharashtra (17)
• Odisha (6)
• Rajasthan (13)
• Uttar Pradesh (13)
• West Bengal (8)

Phase V

The elections for Phase V will take place on 6 May for 51 Lok Sabha constituencies around 7 states which are as follows

• Bihar (5)
• Jammu and Kashmir (2)
• Jharkhand (4)
• Madhya Pradesh (7)
• Rajasthan (12)
• Uttar Pradesh (14)
• West Bengal (7)

Phase VI

The phase VI elections will take place on 12 May for 59 Lok Sabha constituencies around 7 states which are as follows

• Bihar (8)
• Haryana (10)
• Jharkhand (4)
• Madhya Pradesh (8)
• Uttar Pradesh (14)
• West Bengal (8)
• Delhi (7)

Phase VII

The phase VII elections will take place on 19 May for 59 Lok Sabha constituencies around 8 states mentioned as follows

• Bihar (8)
• Jharkhand (3)
• Madhya Pradesh (8)
• Punjab (13)
• West Bengal (9)
• Chandigarh (1)
• Uttar Pradesh (13)
• Himachal Pradesh (4)

Lok Sabha 2019 Polling Stations

For the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, about 10 lakh polling stations have been installed around the country. They will be following Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and 1.1 million electronic voting machines are to be used.

Lok Sabha 2019 Eligible Voters

As per the universal adult franchise, any individual of or above the age of 18 is considered to be eligible for voting. As per the estimates, this year about 820 million citizens will be casting their vote. This is a huge number because it has increased about five times compared to the first vote session. In the last vote session of 2014, about 815 million were the eligible Voters, while only 550 million were able to secure the seat. This year, about 1.5 million citizens are the new voters or first-timers within the age range of 18-19.

Lok Sabha 2019 Candidates and elections

This election will see a tough competition between 8000 contestants will 2 seats being reserved out if 543. About 1841 political parties will be contesting the elections. As per estimations, the overall cost for polling exercise is supposed to be Rs. 500 billion.

UPA or NDA?

The biggest question of all happens to be whether it will be UPA or NDA alliance? But out of all, it is whether Congress or BJP will win the elections. There is no doubt that the Modi wave in the past five years have flung upon the citizens. While Modi has garnered a lot of praise for his decisions, some of his decisions and party members have also brought in a lot of controversies, the major one being Yogi Adityanath, CM of Uttar Pradesh.

Congress on the other hand, has been seen to make no improvements in the past few years. However, Rahul Gandhi has emerged as one efficient leader. And the coming in of Priyanka Gandhi into politics may serve as a benefit to the Party.

Both the parties have had their major differences, advantages and drawbacks. Congress gained a lot of praise when they decided to give up the PM seat for the sake of a stronger alliance. On the other hand, BJP, especially Modi received a lot of praise for his measures such as GST, Surgical Strike and IAF Air Strike.