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Security personnel arrive to guard at a counting centre for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, on the eve of the counting of votes, in Prayagraj(Allahabad) on Wednesday. (PTI)[/caption]
New Delhi, May 22 (IANS): A set of Lok Sabha seats which are expected to be closely contested is turning out to be the big variable ahead of the counting of votes on Thursday.
These comprise at least 78 seats where the gap in vote share is likely to be less than 3 per cent, according to an India Today-Axis My India exit poll. These provide the grey area and could well turn the tide for the NDA or the UPA.
The poll says there are 37 seats where the NDA has a lead -- 33 of these involve the BJP. On the other hand, there are 17 seats where the UPA has a lead -- 13 of these involve the Congress.
There are also 16 seats involving regional parties where the margin of victory is less than three per cent -- seven of these involve the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh, five involve the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, three involve the YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh and one involves the Telangana Rashtra Samiti in Telangana.
There are eight other seats where the vote share margin is extremely narrow, the poll says.
It is difficult to say which party could be the loser in these close contests. However, the BJP is the party to beat and exit polls have generally projected that the BJP would emerge as the single largest party in the elections. But, this might not mean a majority on its own as well in the Lok Sabha. In that scenario, slipping up on the seats where it is slightly ahead of its contenders could prove troublesome.
The BJP might not be a major contender in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but it is in a straight fight with the SP-BSP-RLD mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh and with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
The opposition has toyed with the idea of consolidating the anti-BJP vote in the past. The Bihar mahagathbandhan for the assembly elections in the state in 2015 was a test of this, in which the combination proved successful against the BJP. The Kairana Lok Sabha by-election of May 2018 was significant because it was meant to be a test case for the opposition alliance against the BJP.
The subtext of the mahagathbandhan win in Kairana was that it was necessary for political parties to join hands to defeat the BJP. RLD's Tabassum Hasan defeated Mriganka Singh of the BJP not by a massive margin but by a modest 44,618 votes.
The thin vote margin holds the following messages: first, that the BJP might have the edge but might not be out of the woods going by the exit poll projections, and, second that not having a good alliance could be a case of missed opportunity for the opposition parties.
The fate of 8,049 candidates, including 724 women, in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls will be decided on Thursday when the results are announced.
The Congress had fielded the maximum of 54 women candidates. It was closely followed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had fielded 53 women.
Among the other national parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielded 24 women candidates, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) 23, the CPI(M) 10, the CPI four, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) fielded one woman candidate.
As many as 222 women contested the polls independently.
A total of 8,049 candidates were in the fray in the parliamentary polls.
Four transgender candidates contested the polls independently, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was the only party to field a transgender nominee.
Uttar Pradesh fielded the highest number of women at 104, followed by Maharashtra. Sixty-four women candidates have been fielded from Tamil Nadu, 55 from Bihar and 54 from West Bengal.
According to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch, 100 or 15 per cent women candidates declared criminal cases, while 78 or 11 per cent declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
Two women candidates declared cases in which they were convicted, four declared cases related to murder, 16 had attempt to murder cases against them, 14 were accused of crimes against women such as causing miscarriage without a woman's consent, while seven had cases related to hate speech registered against them, the report said.
Of the 100 women candidates with criminal cases against them, 13 are from the BJP, while 10 from the Congress.
According to the ADR report, of the 716 women candidates analysed, 255 or 36 per cent were crorepatis.
In 2014, of the 665 women candidates analysed, 219 or 33 per cent were crorepatis.
Among the major parties, the average worth of assets per candidate for the Congress's women nominees is INR 18.84 crore, while it is INR 22.09 crore for the BJP candidates. The average worth of assets of the BSP's women candidates is INR 3.03 crore, while for the TMC nominees, it is INR 2.67 crore.
The average worth of assets of the women candidates of the CPI(M) is INR 1.33 crore, INR 39.85 crore of the SP and INR 2.92 crore of the AAP.
The average worth of assets of the 222 Independent women candidates is INR 1.63 crore.
Hema Malini, the BJP candidate from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, is the richest woman nominee in this election with assets worth INR 250 crore, followed by Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) D A Sathya Prabha (INR 220 crore) from Andhra Pradesh's Rajampet constituency and the Shiromani Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal (INR 217 crore) from Punjab's Bathinda, the affidavits showed.
Six women candidates -- all of whom contested the polls independently -- have declared zero assets in their self-sworn affidavits.
The ADR said 232 or 32 per cent women candidates declared their educational qualification to be between Class 5 and Class 12 pass, while 396 or 55 per cent declared having an educational qualification of graduate and above.
Thirty-seven women candidates have declared themselves to be literate and 26 are illiterates. Two candidates did not give their educational qualification details.
The report further said 531 or 74 per cent women candidates declared their age to be between 25 and 50 years, while 180 or 25 per cent declared their age to be between 51 and 80 years.
While one woman candidate declared she was over 80 years of age, three did not disclose their age and one said her age was below 25 years, the report said.
The EC will deploy 200 coys of Central Armed Police Forces(CAPF) in West Bengal in addition to the 82 companies present to ensure security at the counting centres and check any post-poll violence when the exercise is taken up, an EC senior official said on Wednesday.
The counting for 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bengal will be taken up on Thursday along with the rest of the country.
A tight three-tier security layer has been laid out during the counting process. Section 144 Cr PC has been imposed in a 100 metre radius of counting venues, while the innermost security layer is being manned by central forces. (PTI)
A day ahead of vote counting, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dubbed the exit polls as false and urged the party workers to keep faith in the party and asked them to remain vigilant. "Dear Congress workers, next 24 hours are important. Remain alert and vigil. You are fighting for truth. Don't get disheartened by the false exit polls. Have faith on yourself and the party, your efforts would not go in vain," he tweeted. His remarks came two days after most of the exit polls predicted thumping victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance in the Lok Sabha elections. (IANS)
Unlike the past, new members of the 17th Lok Sabha will not get accommodation in five star hotels but will be put up in the Western Court premises and bhavans of various states. "Around 300 rooms have been arranged along with other extensive facilities to render all possible assistance to the Members of Parliament (MPs) so that they do not face any inconvenience when they arrive in the national capital," Lok Sabha Secretary General Snehlata Shrivastava told reporters here on Wednesday.
Top opposition leaders will be in touch with each other and in case the NDA falls short of a majority, they will act swiftly to stake claim to form government, sources said Wednesday, a day ahead of counting of votes of the Lok Sabha elections. Non-NDA parties are in a "wait and watch" mode and their top leaders will be in constant touch with each other to bringing the opposition together, they said. In case the NDA does not get a majority, the opposition parties will write to the President and present themselves as one block and assert that they should be given preference over the single largest party, the sources said. (PTI)
Election authorities said Wednesday that declaration of results of 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat may get delayed by around 3 to 4 hours due to counting of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips. VVPAT slips of five randomly selected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be counted in every Assembly segment after EVM votes are counted, said the state's Chief Electoral Officer S Murali Krishna. Each of the 26 Lok Sabha seats has six to seven assembly segments. If the slips and EVM data do not match, count of VVPAT slips will be taken into consideration, said Krishna. (PTI)
