New Delhi:

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections began this morning with voting for 102 seats in 21 states and Union Territories. The first of seven phases of this election is also the largest, with all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and five in Uttarakhand going to vote, as well as 12 of the 25 seats in Rajasthan. seats, 8 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 6 out of 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 5 seats in the state. from Maharashtra and Assam respectively. Bihar and Bengal will field 4 and 3 seats to the polls in this phase, with Chhattisgarh among the 11 seats. Sikkim and the northeastern states will complete voting today; only one seat in Tripura will not go to the polls.

There have been many high-profile clashes between candidates of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition parties in the 102 seats, whether it is the Congress, Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Party, Samajwadi Party, DMK of Tamil Nadu, and one of the opposition parties. other Indian allies.

These are the picks from these prestige contests.

Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) –

The BJP’s state unit president K Annamalai was elected from one of the few seats in the state where the party felt it had some traction in 2019 with less than 3.7% of the vote. force.

His opponent is the ruling DMK’s Ganapathi P Rajkumar, who served as the city’s mayor from 2014 to 2016. More importantly, he is a former AIADMK leader in the region. He joined DMK in December 2020.

In 2019, CPIM’s PR Natarajan won the seat by a margin of nearly 1.8 lakh votes.

Mr Annamalai, a combative but divisive politician, has been blamed by the BJP’s former ally AIADMK for the split between the two parties. The split is seen as a serious blow to the BJP, which hopes to make its mark in Tamil Nadu, as it deprives the saffron party of its local backbone. However, the response was strong and the Prime Minister launched a blitz of campaign rallies in the state, focusing on Coimbatore and western Tamil Nadu, or Konguna Nadu which is considered the AIADMK stronghold.

The strategy seems simple – capitalize on the recent alliance with the AIADMK. For this, the Prime Minister attacked the DMK and Congress but praised late AIADMK icons J Jayalalithaa and MG Ramachandran, both former chief ministers. The BJP also has some influence in Coimbatore itself, especially after the 1998 serial bombings.

The BJP is not expected to make waves this election, but winning Coimbatore (and perhaps a higher vote share) will be seen as a statement, especially in the state polls due in 2026.

Chennai South (Tamil Nadu) –

The Chennai South seat saw the return of former Telangana governor and former Puducherry deputy governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to electoral politics as he faces a tough test from DMK MP Tamilachi Thangapandian. AIADMK’s J Jayavardhan makes it a three-cornered contest.

The Chennai South seat has been a DMK stronghold in recent years; TR Baalu ​​held the seat from 1996 to 2004. Mr Jayavardhan won the seat in 2014. The seat is also a prestigious one as it contains the city’s business hub – T Nagar – and is home to many large IT companies.

The BJP (and AIADMK) hopes to capitalize on the criticism the DMK faced during the December floods, when this part of the city was badly affected. They will also seek to profit from any anti-incumbency behavior against Ms Thangapandian, who has been accused of neglecting the region, which she denies.

As in Coimbatore, the BJP will be eyeing a strong performance in the seat to gauge how much impact the Prime Minister’s campaign visit had on Tamil Nadu voters.

Gaya (Bihar) –

Bihar’s second-largest city is a major tourist attraction and a holy site for three religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, and is mentioned in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is also one of the six Lok Sabha seats reserved for scheduled castes in the state.

This year’s contest pits former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and his Hindustan Avami Morcha (Secular) against the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Kumar Sarjith Sarvjeet, the MLA from Bodh Gaya part of the parliamentary constituency.

This seat deserves attention because on paper, the BJP-led National Development Alliance looks set to win comfortably on its way to achieving its goal of sweeping Bihar. Jitan Manjhi contested from the seat in 2014 and 2009 but lost badly to JDU’s Vijay Manjhi and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hari Manjhi . This time, JDU and BJP are allies.

This could be a thorny issue for the RJD, which is part of the state’s Mahagathbandhan alliance (with the Congress) and the Indian National Bloc. But a strong performance here today could help the opposition gain momentum heading into the game.

Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh) –

The Bharatiya Janata Party has dropped sitting MP Varun Gandhi, who was linked with a major shift in Congress, joining his cousins ​​Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Varun Gandhi is a two-time BJP MP from Pilibhit, after his mother Maneka Gandhi was also sent to the Assembly.

Mrs. Gandhi was elected six times as Member of Parliament from Pilibhit. But neither mother nor son will contest this election, with the BJP opting to make a major change by drafting turncoat Jitin Prasada in Congress to take on Samajwadi Party (and Indian) candidate Ba Bhagwat Saran Gangwar.

The Awami League holds 80 Lok Sabha seats and has been a bastion of the BJP in past elections. Weakening this bastion is crucial if the opposition wants to topple or even destabilize the saffron party, and winning Pilibhit would be a good first step in that direction.

Kairana (Uttar Pradesh) –

A seat that has been quite controversial in recent history. Ahead of the 2017 state elections, several BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, claimed that a large number of Hindus were forced to leave the region due to threats during the Samajwadi Party’s rule. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also triggered the controversy ahead of the 2021 state polls.

But this doesn’t seem to have any effect, SP wins both times. The Lok Sabha seats are more evenly distributed, with the BJP winning in 2014 and 2019. The Janata Party won in 2014.

In 2019, the BJP’s Pradeep Choudhary will seek to contest the seat against the Samajwadi Party’s Iqra Hasan, who will also be the joint candidate of the India Bloc. In theory, this should maximize Iqra Hasan’s votes as the opposition looks to wrest another seat from the BJP in the politically key state.

Rampur (Uttar Pradesh) –

Staying in Uttar Pradesh, next is Rampur – the stronghold of SP leader Azam Khan, who still wields immense influence despite his imprisonment. This seat deserves attention because of the drama that preceded the nomination filing. Candidates for Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan were both present to submit documents, leading to a minor intra-party standoff,

Bastar (Chhattisgarh) –

This is the only one of the 11 seats in the state to go to polls in this phase. Bastar is a Maoist hotspot and clashes between the insurgents and state security forces are common. In fact, just days before the polls, 29 Maoists were killed in a massive gunfight in the area.

In 2019, the seat was won by Congress MP Deepak Baij, who is also the party’s national president. More importantly, he was also one of the few survivors of the 2013 congressional convoy ambush.

The seat is crucial not only because of the political narrative surrounding the Maoist threat and because it is one of only 11 seats in the state, but also because Baij’s victory in 2019 ended the BJP’s six-game winning streak; Baliram Kashyap won the title from 1998 to 2009, and his son Dinesh Kashyap won it twice more after his death, in 2011 and 2014.

Kuchi Behar (Bangladesh) –

Cooch Behar is one of the three seats to be contested in this phase of Bengal polls, in north Bengal, a state increasingly seen as a stronghold of the BJP, which is slowly but surely making its way to defeat Chief Minister Mamata · Trinamool led by Banerjee. In fact, all three seats in this phase were won by the BJP and for Trinamool, recapturing these seats is the top priority in defeating Modi’s party.

In 2019, the seat was won by Nisith Pramanik, a junior minister in the Union Home Ministry, who was elected again. His opponent is Trinamool’s Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia.

Inner City of Manipur (Manipur) –

In May last year, ethnic conflicts broke out in the northeastern state, killing more than 200 people and displacing tens of thousands of people. In the battle for parliamentary seats in Manipur, Manipur attracted much attention because it won. BJP in the last election.

However, Primary Education and External Affairs Minister Dr Rajkumar Ranjan Singh will not defend his seat. The BJP has tasked Thounaojam Basanta Kumar Singh to ensure that the Congress party does not withdraw from the seat; the Congress party’s Thokchom Meinya won it for three consecutive terms starting in 2004.