New Delhi: The penultimate phase of polling for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, covering 58 seats spread over six states and the union territories of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir will be held on Saturday. Among the prominent candidates in the fray are former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti (Jammu and Kashmir) and Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Deepender Hooda, Naveen Jindal, Bansuri Swaraj, Manoj Tiwari, Kanhaiya Kumar, Bhartruhari Mahtab and JP Aggarwal
States where polling will be held in the sixth phase are Bihar (8 seats), Haryana (10), Jharkhand (4), Odisha (6), Uttar Pradesh (14), West Bengal (8), Delhi (7). Polling will also be held in Anantnag-Rajouri seat of J&K where Mufti is the PDP candidate.
Unlike in 2014 and 2019, when BJP had won all seven seats in Delhi, this time the battle is not easy for the party as AAP and Congress have joined hands with the former contesting four seats and the latter three.
Seats in West Bihar will go to polls on Saturday. Former Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh is trying to retain his seat Purvi Champaran while sitting Paschim Champaran MP Sanjay Jaiswal is in the fray again. Siwan, Sheohar, Vaishali, Gopalganj, and Maharajganj are the other seats where people will exercise their franchise.
In Odisha, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is contesting his maiden Lok Sabha election from Sambalpur and is pitted against BJD organizing secretary Pranab Prakash Das, considered number two in his party’s hierarchy.
In Uttar Pradesh, 14 seats in the eastern part of the state will go to polls on Saturday. Maneka Gandhi is contesting from Sultanpur while former bureaucrat Nripendra Mishra’s son Saket is making his debut as a BJP candidate from Shravasti.
BJP had won all ten seats in Haryana but is not likely to repeat its performance this time. Khattar is the party candidate from Karnal.
In West Bengal, former judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay – who has courted several controversies in the past few days – is the BJP candidate from Tamluk.
