LS polls to cross half-way mark as stage set for Phase IV on Monday

The Phase IV of voting in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies in 10 states on Monday will see the marathon exercise spread over seven rounds cross the half-way mark. Notwithstanding the scorching heat in most parts of the country, the no-holds-barred campaign saw politicians from both the NDA and INDIA bloc parties criss-crossing remote constituencies to woo the voters.

Along with all the LS constituencies in Andhra Pradesh (25) and Telangana (17), voting will take place simultaneously to elect MLAs for the 125-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly. A triangular contest is on the cards involving YSRC, the Congress-led INDIA bloc and the NDA, comprising the BJP, Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP and Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party (JSP).

The ruling YSRCP is contesting in all 175 Assembly seats and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. As part of a seat-sharing deal among NDA partners, the TDP was allocated 144 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha constituencies while the BJP will contest from six Lok Sabha and 10 Assembly seats. The Janasena will contest two Lok Sabha and 21 Assembly seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the YSRCP had won 22 seats while TDP was reduced to just 3.

While usual cacophony over issues like reservation, minority appeasement, corruption and jobs dominated the battle of narratives in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections, the highlight of the electioneering was the sharp exchanges between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The campaign saw BJP leaders led by Prime Minister Modi attacking the Congress over the remarks of Rahul Gandhi's close aide Sam Pitroda on "race" and "skin colour" of Indians. They accused the INDIA bloc parties of being "anti-Hindu" and engaging in "loot, appeasement" and "dynastic politics".

The Congress targeted the BJP over the prime minister's "tempo loads of money" remarks and persisted with its offensive on the issues of protecting the Constitution and reservations.

Among the prominent candidates in this round are Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP), Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar) and Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar), Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Baharampur, WB), BJP's Pankaja Munde (Beed, Maharashtra), AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi (Hyderabad, Telangana) and Andhra Pradesh Congress president YS Sharmila (Kadapa).

Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni, whose son is an accused in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, is eyeing a hat-trick from Kheri (UP), while TMC's Mahua Moitra, who was expelled from Lok Sabha in the wake of cash-for query allegations, is seeking re-election from Krishnanagar in West Bengal.

Besides 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and 25 in Andhra Pradesh, polling will be held on Monday in 13 in Uttar Pradesh, five in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in Maharashtra, four in Odisha, eight in West Bengal and one in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP-led NDA has MPs from over 40 of these 96 seats.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addressed election rallies in Unnao, Kannauj and Kanpur on Saturday, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) held a public outreach programme in Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency. Among the 13 poll-bound constituencies, a close contest is on between SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and sitting BJP MP Subrat Pathak in Kannauj, while in Unnao, incumbent BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj is up against SP's Annu Tandon.

Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday gave a new twist to the campaign by accusing the Congress of having a "deal" with businessmen Ambani and Adani, and asked if the party has received "tempo loads of black money" from the two for its leader Rahul Gandhi to stop "abusing" them.

Hitting back, Gandhi dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold a probe by the CBI or ED into whether Adani and Ambani sent black money to his party and taunted if Modi was speaking from his "personal experience" that they send their "money in a tempo".

On the same day, Pitroda resigned as the Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress after his controversial remarks spurred the BJP to label the Congress "racist" and left it scampering to control the damage.

Slamming the Congress and INDIA bloc, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Muslims now understand that the Congress and INDIA bloc are using them as pawns, asserting that the community is distancing itself from them after seeing the development carried out by the BJP.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said an INDIA bloc storm is arriving in Uttar Pradesh, and asserted that Narendra Modi will not make it to the post of prime minister this time. Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav addressed joint rallies in Kannauj and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, where the two parties are contesting as allies. Under their seat-sharing agreement, the Congress is fighting on 17 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In his Kanpur address, Gandhi claimed the Congress will win at least 50 of the 80 LS seats in UP.

The SP chief has termed the ongoing Lok Sabha elections as a "national movement" for the cause of the Constitution and to protect reservations. Polling for the next three phases is on May 20, May 25 and June 1. Counting of votes is on June 4.