Lok Sabha Election 2019: End to no-holds-barred campaign; final leg vote tomorrow

Curtains came down on Friday on a long-drawn, acrimonious, no-holds-barred poll campaign, which started with the Election Commission announcing dates of LS polls on March 10. The fate of 918 candidates from 59 LS constituencies spread across seven states and one Union Territory will be sealed at the end of voting on May 19.

The maximum number of seats going to poll in the seventh and final phase of Lok Sabha election 2019 are in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab with 13 seats each. While voting in Uttar Pradesh took place in all the seven phases, Punjab has only 13 seats and all of them are going to poll in one phase.

West Bengal (9 seats), Madhya Pradesh (8), Bihar (8), Himachal (4) and Jharkhand (3) are the other states which will vote in the final phase.

This phase will see voting in Varanasi, the constituency of PM Modi. He is pitted against Congress candidate Ajay Rai, SP nominee Shalini Yadav and 23 others. One more high profile seat where voting will be held on May 19 is Patna Sahib where incumbent MP Shatrughan Sinha is challenging his former party colleague and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Sinha had won from Patna Sahib in 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket but quit in March 2019 and joined the Congress.

Among other seats which will see a key contest, Punjab’s ex-DyCM Sukhbir Badal is trying luck from Ferozepur seat, his wife and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur from Bhatinda, Union Minister Hardeep Puri from Amritsar and Punjab CM Amarinder’s wife Praneet Kaur from Patiala.

West Bengal saw the EC cracking the whip and invoking Article 324 of the Constitution to end the campaigning on Thursday, 10 pm following large scale violence including a massive Trinamool-BJP clash during a roadshow of Amit Shah in Kolkata on Wednesday.

The EC has set up over 1.12 lakh polling stations for the smooth conduct of voting.