New Delhi: The whole of Gujarat and Punjab goes to polls on Wednesday in the seventh phase of Lok Sabha elections along with some seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that will decide the fate of top guns including Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Telangana, the new state-to-be, will also elect its first assembly along with representatives to Parliament when elections will be held in 119 Assembly constituencies and 17 Lok Sabha seats in that part of Andhra Pradesh. Wednesday, a total of 13.83 crore voters have the right to vote in the polls in seven states and two union territories that will in all elect 89 MPs. Elections are already over in 349 constituencies in the first six phases.
Yet again, Congress and BJP have big stakes in Wednesday's elections with 35 and 23 seats in their bag respectively which were won in the last elections. Stakes are also high for the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab which has four seats and is locked in a bitter contest with Congress. TRS, which spearheaded the campaign for Telangana state, and Congress, whose government at the Centre cleared the new state proposal, are said to be involved in a hard-fought contest over credit for the new state. TRS has two Lok Sabha seats while TDP has two from the region. JD (U) and Trinamool Congress have five seats each in the constituencies going to polls on Wednesday, while CPI (M) has four.
Modi is seeking to make his debut in Lok Sabha by contesting from Vadodara, which is among the 26 seats in Gujarat going to polls in a single phase tomorrow. He is pitted against Madhusudan Mistry of Congress. Modi is also contesting from Varanasi where he is pitted against AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and Congress' Ajay Rai. The Varanasi seat in eastern Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the last phase on May 12. BJP veteran L K Advani is seeking re-election from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
Rae Bareli, the pocket borough of the Gandhis, Lucknow and Kanpur are among the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where election will be held tomorrow. Congress President Sonia Gandhi is seeking re-election from Rae Bareli, BJP President Rajnath Singh is contesting from Lucknow, once represented by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lok Sabha. He is a sitting MP from Ghaziabad. Singh is pitted against former UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi and AAP's Javed Jaffrey. Shifted from Varanasi, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi is contesting from Kanpur where Union minister and Congress leader Sriprakash Jaiswal is fighting to retain his turf.
Along with Gujarat, Punjab will also witness polling in a single phase tomorrow with Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and BJP leader Arun Jaitley pitted against former state Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in the keenly fought electoral battle in Amritsar. Jaitley is fighting his maiden Lok Sabha polls and a victory is likely to propel him to a position of power if the NDA forms the government, while Amarinder's win will revive his political fortunes and he will again emerge as the key Congress leader in the state which has 13 Lok Sabha constituencies.
