59 seats spread across 7 states to go to poll today

New Delhi: The sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections will witness voting in 59 constituencies spread across 7 states on May 12. The second last phase of polls is set to decide the fate of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Union ministers Maneka Gandhi and Radhamohan Singh, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and his rival from BJP Pragya Thakur, as well as former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, former Union minister Ajay Maken and sportspersons turned politicians like cricketer Gautam Gambhir and boxer Vijender Singh.

Voting will be held in 14 seats of Uttar Pradesh, while all of Delhi’s sevenand Haryana’s 10 seats will be wrapped up in this phase.

Apart from this, polling will also take place in eight seats each of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Four seats of Jharkhand will also witness voting in the sixth phase. In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 44 of these 59 seats.

Congress’ eastern Uttar Pradesh general secretary in-charge Priyanka Gandhi has done some hectic campaigning in the 14 seats of the state which will vote on May 12, mainly Jaunpur, Pratapgarh and Sultanpur. In Sultanpur, Ms Gandhi held a roadshow in support of Sanjay Singh, who has been pitted against her aunt Maneka Gandhi.

This development is interesting as the Congress has been cautious about not directly campaigning against Ms Maneka Gandhi or her son Varun Gandhi in their constituencies in the past.

The grand old party is quite hopeful in eight seats of Madhya Pradesh — Bhind, Bhopal, Dewas, Guna, Gwalior, Morena, Rajgarh and Sagar. Out of these eight seats, the BJP had won seven seats except for Guna in 2014.

Former union minister and Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia had won from his home turf Guna at that time. He has represented that seat since 2002 when he had won in a by-election from Guna following the demise of his father Madhavrao Scindia in 2001.

The BJP had won 27 out of the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh. Similar to Gujarat, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, a direct contest between the BJP and Congress is expected in that state.

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