Election campaign ends as Indians prepare for last phase of polling

NEW DELHI

Campaigning in Indian general elections ended on Thursday as the South Asian country geared up for the last of the seven-phased mega voting.

The last phase of polling for 57 parliamentary constituencies is scheduled for Saturday and the vote count will take place on June 4.

So far, voting has been done in 486 of the total 543 parliamentary seats in the world's most populous country of 1.4 billion people, of whom as many as 970 million were registered to vote.

The first six phases were held on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, and May 25.

According to the Indian election commission, phase one recorded a turnout of 66.14%, phase two saw 66.71%, third 65.68%, while the fourth and fifth phases witnessed 69.16% and 62.20% voter turnout, respectively. The turnout in the penultimate phase was recorded as 63.37%.

Among the key candidates contesting in Saturday’s last phase of elections include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking another term from the Varanasi constituency in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

According to the commission, some 904 candidates are in the fray across the eight states and union territories that would go to polls in the final phase. The states going to polls include the northern Punjab state, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal.

With heat waves prevailing across the country, the previous phases of elections saw less polling turnout compared to 2019.

The election is primarily a battle between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the opposition alliance called INDIA, headed by the Indian National Congress.

Political commentators have predicted that the BJP would likely retain power.

The election has witnessed some aggressive campaigning, with the main opposition Congress accusing Modi of hate speech against Muslims. He has denied the allegations.

Indian election authorities also requested clarifications from both the BJP and Congress on alleged violations of polling rules in election campaigning speeches.

Former prime minister and senior Congress leader, Manmohan Singh, in a message to voters in Punjab on Thursday, accused Modi of indulging “in the most vicious form of hate speeches, which are purely divisive in nature.”

“Modi ji is the first prime minister to lower the dignity of public discourse, and thereby the gravity of the office of the prime minister,” he said in a letter. "No prime minister in the past has uttered such hateful, unparliamentary, and coarse terms, meant to target either a specific section of the society or the opposition.”

Among the most debated issues ahead of the election was the newly launched military scheme called Agnipath. The scheme, spearheaded by the ruling BJP, recruits people into the military on four-year contracts. The policy was opposed by many, including the opposition parties, with the main opposition Congress promising it would scrap the scheme if elected to power.