As many as 22 states and union territories across India will have single-phase elections during the seven-round Lok Sabha polls scheduled between April 19 and June 1, with the votes to be counted on June 4. The list includes four of the five south Indian states, data from the Election Commission of India shows. There are 182 seats in all these states and union territories.
Tamil Nadu, with 39 seats, will go for polls first in the opening phase on April 19, while in the second phase, it will be Kerala with all 20 seats having voting in a single round on April 26.
The two states are critical for the Bharatiya Janata Party as it has been aiming to open its account in these parts after getting zero seats in 2019. That year, the Congress swept the polls in Kerala as it bagged 15 seats, and in Tamil Nadu, it was the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) with 24 seats.
Andhra Pradesh, which has 25 seats, will also have a single-day election in the fourth phase on May 13. In 2019, it was the YSR Congress Party that swept the polls by winning 22 out of the 25 seats. Both the Congress and BJP drew a blank in the state.
In Telangana, with 17 Lok Sabha seats, voting will also be held in the fourth phase on May 13. In 2019, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi won nine seats here and the BJP got four. The Congress managed three seats.
The fifth state in the south – Karnataka, with 28 Lok Sabha seats – will go for polling in two phases. The state will have voting in the second and third phases for 14 seats each.
The other states and UTs that will see single-phase polling include Gujarat where all 26 seats will have voting on May 7 in the third phase. Haryana with 10 seats will go for voting in the sixth phase on May 25. Punjab with 13 seats has been saved for the last phase of polling on June 1. All seven seats in Delhi will go for single-phase polling on May 25. Uttarakhand with five seats will also be covered in the first phase on April 19.
The majority of smaller states with single-digit Lok Sabha seats will have one-day polling, except Tripura and Manipur. Despite having two seats each, they will undergo polling in the first and second phases.
The other states and UTs that will have single-phase polling include Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Meghalaya, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (with two seats each). Similarly, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Ladakh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Chandigarh with one seat each will also have single-phase polling.
Three states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal – will have elections in all seven phases covering 162 seats.
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