Lok Sabha elections in western India will be held from April 19 to May 20, with Maharashtra voting in five phases, Gujarat in single phase on May 7 and Rajasthan in two phases on April 19 and April 26 as per the parliamentary polls schedule announced by the Election Commission of India on Saturday. The Lok Sabha election results 2024 will be out on June 4, 2024 when the counting of votes takes place across India.
- Maharashtra – April 19 (5 seats), April 26 (8 seats), May 7 (11 seats), May 13 (11 seats), May 20 (13 seats)
- Gujarat – May 7
- Rajasthan – April 19 (12 seats), April 26 (13 seats)
- Counting of votes on June 4, 2024
The BJP is gunning for a third consecutive term for Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, while the opposition has put up the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to challenge him. The bloc, however, has not declared a prime ministerial candidate. The BJP currently has 290 seats in the lower house, while its main rival, the Congress, has 48.
Maharashtra sends 48 MPs to the Lok Sabha, while Gujarat has 26 seats in the Lower House of Parliament and Rajasthan has 25 seats.
MAHARASHTRA
Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, Ajit Pawar’s NCP and the BJP will contest the Lok Sabha elections in alliance in Maharashtra. The BJP had won 23 of the 25 seats it had contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, while its then alliance partner — the undivided Shiv Sena — won 18 seats of the 23 seats it had contested. The undivided NCP, as part of the opposition alliance, had contested 19 seats and managed to win four.
The Shiv Sena, which had joined hands with the Congress and the NCP to form a coalition government after the Assembly elections in Maharashtra in 2019, split in 2022 when Eknath Shinde walked away with a majority of the party’s MPs and MLAs and joined hands with the BJP. The saffron party, which was the single largest party after the last state elections, formed a coalition government with Shinde as the chief minister.
Similarly, Ajit Pawar walked away with a majority of the MLAs and joined the BJP-Shiv Sena government last year. The Shinde and the Ajit Pawar factions have been recognised as the ‘real’ Shiv Sena and ‘real’ NCP’, respectively, by the Election Commission and the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker.
GUJARAT
The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have struck up a seat-sharing pact in Gujarat. As per the formula, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party will contest from Bharuch and Bhavnagar Lok Sabha seats and the Congress on the rest 24.
The BJP had whitewashed Congress in the 2019 and 2014 general elections by winning all 26 constituencies in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
In the 2022 state Assembly elections, the BJP had retained power with a record mandate of 156 seats. The Congress won 17 seats and the AAP won five out of 182.
Two sitting MLAs and a former legislator are among the seven candidates in Gujarat whose names were declared by the Congress last week.
Two-term Congress legislator from Vav constituency, Geniben Thakor, has been given the ticket by the party to contest from the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in north Gujarat. She is pitted against Bharatiya Janata Party’s Rekhaben Chaudhary, whose name was declared in the ruling party’s first list of candidates. Thakor won the Vav seat twice – in 2017 and 2022, having defeated BJP heavyweight Shankar Chaudhary during the 2017 election.
The Congress also fielded its MLA Anant Patel from Valsad seat, which is reserved for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community. A tribal leader, Patel is a sitting MLA from Vansda seat. The party also gave a second chance to its former MLA Lalit Vasoya to contest from Porbandar Lok Sabha seat.
Vasoya had unsuccessfully contested the Porbandar parliamentary seat in 2019 as the then sitting Congress MLA from Dhoraji seat. He was defeated in the 2022 assembly election from the Dhoraji seat. He will contest against Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who has been fielded by the BJP from the Porbandar seat.
From the Ahmedabad (East) Parliamentary seat, the party has fielded its national spokesperson Rohan Gupta. A vocal face on national news channels, Gupta had also served as the chairperson of the social media department of the party in the past.
The grand old party fielded new faces from the Kutch (Scheduled Caste-reserved seat), Ahmedabad (West) (SC) and Bardoli (ST) seats. It also announced the names of Nitish Lalan, Bharat Makwana and Siddharth Chaudhary for these seats respectively.
Lalan is pitted against sitting BJP MP Vinod Chavda, Bharat Makwana against Dinesh Makwana, and Chaudhary against Prabhu Vasava.
The BJP has not yet declared the names of candidates for Ahmedabad (East) and Valsad seats.
RAJASTHAN
The BJP had won 24 seats and its alliance partner Hanuman Beniwal of Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) won Nagaur seat in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The NDA, thus, had won all 25 seats. Beniwal’s RLP is no longer an NDA partner and he himself is an MLA at present.
In 2019, the Congress had failed to consolidate its position despite winning the assembly elections in December 2018, contrary to the state’s decades-old trend of the ruling party getting a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won all 25 seats on its own.
The Congress, which lost power in the state last year, has fielded 10 candidates so far, including former chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav from Jalore Lok Sabha seat and sitting MP Rahul Kaswan, who recently joined the Congress leaving the BJP, from Churu. Vaibhav Gehlot had contested the Lok Sabha election unsuccessfully from Jodhpur seat in 2019 against present Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
The list comprises names of three sitting MLAs, including Lalit Yadav from Alwar Lok Sabha seat, Harish Meena from Tonk Lok Sabha seat and Brijendra Ola from Jhunjhunu Lok Sabha seat. Among the new face in the list is Karan Singh Uchiyarda, who is presently party’s state general secretary, and Sanjana Jatav from Bharatpur. Lalit Yadav is the Congress’ sitting MLA from Mundawar, Harish Meena from Deoli-Uniara and Brijendra Ola from Jhunjhunu assembly seat.
The BJP has retained Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from Kota. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal will contest from Bikaner, MoS Harish Chaudhary from Barmer and Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Shekhawat from Jodhpur. The party has fielded new faces from Udaipur, Bharatpur, Churu, Jalore, and Banswara.
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