Amid the ongoing polling for the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his vote at Nishan Higher Secondary School in Ahmedabad. Draped in his customary Kurta Pajama and saffron-coloured half jacket, he also showed the indelible ink mark on his finger after casting his vote.
Upon reaching the polling booth, the Prime Minister was welcomed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Speaking to the media exercising his franchise, the Prime Minister also congratulated the Election Commission for conducting the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls with hardly any violence and asked the people to come out in large numbers to vote.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi urged people to vote in record numbers. He posted in different languages on his X account, urging people to exercise their franchise. “Urging all those who are voting in today’s phase to vote in record numbers. Their active participation will certainly make the elections more vibrant,” the PM’s post read.
Prominent people who are in the fray include Union ministers Amit Shah from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Madhya Pradesh, Pralhad Joshi from Karnataka’s Dharwad and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh.
From opposition parties, Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh; Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from Berhampore, West Bengal, and Digvijaya Singh from Rajgarh, Madhya Pradesh; NCP’s Supriya Sule from Maharashtra’s Baramati are some of the candidates seeking a mandate in the third phase.
Interestingly, the third phase covers seats and regions that are BJP strongholds, including Madhya Pradesh and Modi’s home state Gujarat. In the 2019 elections, the party won 72 of the 93 seats going to polls on Tuesday. However, things have since changed as the Congress and its allies have gained strength in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka. Moreover, the Revanna sex scandal in Karnataka and Rajputs protests in the north are causing worry to BJP.
The polling started for 93 Lok Sabha seats across 12 states and union territories in the third phase of the general election on Tuesday at 7 am. The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
