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New Delhi: Keeping up with its mandated poll schedule the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday issued a Gazette notification for 102 Parliamentary Constituencies across 21 States/UTs going for polls in the General Elections to Lok Sabha 2024. The polling in these PCs in Phase 1 will take place on April 19.
The States/UTs included in Phase 1 are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.
As per the poll schedule for the first phase, the last date of making nominations is March 27, scrutiny of nomination papers is March 28, withdrawal of nomination papers is March 30, date of poll is April 19 and counting of votes is on June 4.
Out of the 102 Lok Sabha constituencies that are going to the polls on April 19, five are from Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. These include – Ramtek (SC), Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST) and Chandrapur.
Considering the severe heat wave conditions in the summer months in some parts of Vidarbha region and the Naxal problem, the ECI has curtailed polling time in some assembly segments of Arjuni-Morgaon to 8 hours between 7 am to 3 pm in Bhandara-Gondiya PC, and to 8 hours also in Amgaon, Armori, Gadchiroli, and Aheri assembly segments in Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST) PC. This has been done taking into account the early sunset and the Naxalite prone areas. For the rest of the assembly segments in the PCs voting hours are between 7 am to 6 pm.
While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced just two names, that of – Union Minister for Road Transport Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur and Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar from Chandrapur, it has still not decided upon the candidature of the other three seats. At the time of going to the press, the Congress was expected to announce the names of its candidates for the first phase of polling.
The rest of the Mahayuti allies – the Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena faction and Ajit Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP – AP faction) and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies the Uddhav Thackeray led UBT Sena faction and Sharad Pawar led NCP-SP faction are yet to finalize their seat sharing agreement and declare the names of their candidates.
The severe heatwave conditions and security concerns due to Naxal activities in some assembly segments of the five PCs, the ECI has curtailed polling hours. These factors also affect the poll campaigning in these regions. Barely a week is left before the filing of nomination papers closes on March 27, thereafter, little under a month is left for campaigning. The severely curtailed poll schedule due to climatic and security concerns are bound to severely constrain the contesting candidates also.
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