In the second phase of voting for the Lok Sabha elections in India, 89 seats across 13 states and Union Territories will go to polls today.
By the end of the day, a third of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats 鈥� including all the seats in Kerala, Rajasthan, Manipur and Tripura, and 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka 鈥� will have completed polling.
In Outer Manipur, 13 Assembly segments are voting in the second phase; the remaining 15 had voted in the first phase along with the Inner Manipur seat.
Of the 89 seats, 9 and 7 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, respectively, reports the Indian Express.
In 2019, the parties that now constitute the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling NDA had won 61 and 23 of these seats, the undivided Shiv Sena鈥檚 4 seats and the BSP鈥檚 1 seat.
In terms of vote share, the NDA had got 50.73 per cent of the votes compared to the INDIA bloc鈥檚 41.94 per cent (excluding the votes of the Shiv Sena and NCP, both of which were united at the time).
There will be a total 1,210 candidates in the fray today. The BSP has fielded the most candidates in this phase at 74, followed by the BJP at 69 and the Congress at 68.
Karnataka, with 14 seats going to polls, has the most candidates at 247, followed by Maharashtra (8 seats) at 204 and Kerala (all its 20 seats) at 189.