Third phase of polling for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be held today. Voting will be held in 93 Lok Sabha Constituencies spread across ten States and one Union Territory. The voting will begin at 7 AM and end at 6 PM.
Twenty five seats in Gujarat, 14 in Karnataka, 11 in Maharashtra and 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh are going to polls during this phase. Besides, voting will also take place on nine seats in Madhya Pradesh, seven in Chhattisgarh, five in Bihar, four seats each in Assam and West Bengal, two seats each in Goa and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman today.
The polling for Anantnag-Rajouri Parliamentary Constituency in Jammu and Kashmir, which was earlier scheduled in third phase, will now be held in the Sixth phase. Besides, there will also be no polling in Surat Parliamentary Constituency in Gujarat, as the candidate has been elected unopposed. Betul Parliamentary Constituency in Madhya Pradesh will also go to polls in the third phase, since polling date for this Parliamentary Constituency was rescheduled from Phase two owing to the demise of a BSP candidate.
Around 18 lakh 50 thousand Polling officials will be deployed across one lakh 85 thousand polling stations. In this phase, there are over 17 crore voters including 8.85 crore male and 8.39 crore female. A total of one thousand 331 candidates are in the fray in this phase. The third phase of the Lok Sabha Elections will witness the visit of a large number of foreign delegates for experiencing India’s polling process and management. 75 delegates from 23 countries will visit polling stations in six states, as part of the International Election Visitor Programme.
The weather conditions are likely to be within normal ranges. The Election Commission has made all arrangements for the smooth conduct of polling. For the convenience of the voters at the polling stations, facilities like water, sheds, ramps, volunteers and wheelchairs are available. Some of the prominent candidates whose political fate will be sealed in the EVMs today are senior BJP leaders Amit Shah, Mansukh Mandaviya, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Pralhad Joshi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Basavaraj Bommai, Congress leader Digvijay Singh, Samajwadi party leader Dimple Yadav, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) leader Supriya Sule.
