1. The Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat will face a high-stakes battle with Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai facing DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK’s Singai Ramachandran. The candidacy for president in Tamil Nadu shows the BJP’s efforts to increase its influence in southern India.

2. Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nitin Gadkari is hoping to make it three wins in a row from the Nagpur seat in Maharashtra. The seat will be contested between Mr Gadkari and Congress candidate Vikas Thakre, currently MLA from Nagpur West.

3. Jitin Prasada, who quit the Congress in 2021, is one of the leading candidates of the BJP in the first phase. He succeeds two-term Uttar Pradesh Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party had secured an absolute majority in the Janata Party in the previous two Lok Sabha elections. The Samajwadi Party fielded Bhagwant Saran Gangwar and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielded Anees Ahmes Khan against Mr. Prasada.

4. Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi is campaigning from Gaya. The election holds great political significance for the 79-year-old Manji. Gaya has the largest number of candidates running in the election, with 14 candidates. The BJP has reserved the Gaya (reserved) seat to its ally Hindustan Awam Morcha Secular (HAM-S).

5. The Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned in vying for the only seat won by the Congress party in the 2019 elections – Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. Nakul Nath, son of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, once again contests from Chhindwara seat with BJP candidate Vivek Bondi Vivek Bunty Sahu, who lost to Kamal Nath in the past two assembly elections.

6. The Jorhat seat in Assam will decide whether Gaurav Gogoi, deputy leader of Congress’ Lok Sabha, also enters the elected House this time. The constituency is considered a BJP stronghold. Mr Gogoi’s decision to contest the election from Jorhat rather than his family’s stronghold of Kaziranga (formerly Kaliabor) – where he is an MP – makes the contest interesting .

7. Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32 seats) will also be held today. Voting will begin at 7 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. The Election Commission has deployed over 18 lakh polling personnel at 1.87 lakh polling stations; over 16.63 crore people are eligible to vote.

8. Polls will be held in Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1) , Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1) all seats. 1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1).

9. In addition, there are 12 seats in Rajasthan, 8 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 6 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 5 seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, 4 seats in Bihar, 3 seats in West Bengal, and Manipur. 2 seats in the state, 1 seat each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh.

10. In 2019, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 45 of these 102 seats and the NDA won 41. As part of the delimitation exercise, six of the seats have been re-demarcated.

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