Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Guide To Phase 1
A ready reckoner on the states going to vote on April 11, key seats and candidate details...
As voting commenced in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election, political parties pulled out all stops to woo nearly 90 crore voters.
The battle for 543 seats will begin from the first phase of the polls conducted by the Election Commission in 91 constituencies across 20 states on April 11.
Telangana will witness its first-ever general election after it was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has cemented alliances with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and the Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party in Bihar, among others.
The Indian National Congress’ allies include the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, a Rashtriya Janata Dal-led ‘grand alliance’ in Bihar, the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, among others.
Phase 1 - April 11
Here’s a ready reckoner on the states going to vote on April 11, key seats and candidate details.
Key Seats
Voters across these 91 constituencies will decide the fate of a number of the country’s senior-most political leaders.
Uttar Pradesh
The state will see 96 candidates vying for eight seats in the first phase of the election.
- Baghpat: The BJP’s incumbent MP and Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satya Pal Singh will contest against Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary. Chaudhary’s father is RLD chief Ajit Singh, who lost the 2014 election to Satya Pal Singh but had won the seat six times before that. The Baghpat seat is a bastion dynastical for the Chaudhary family, which was formerly held by Ajit singh’s father and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
- Ghaziabad: The BJP has fielded Minister of State for External Affairs and former Army Chief VK Singh, who is the current MP for Ghaziabad.
- Kairana: The communally-sensitive constituency will see Tabassum Hasan contest on a Samajwadi Party ticket. She had wrested the seat from the BJP in a 2018 by-election.
Andhra Pradesh
The state will see 319 candidates vying for 25 seats.
- Vizianagram: Telugu Desam Party’s Ashok Gajapathi Raju belongs to the erstwhile royal family of Vizianagram. He served as the Union Minister for Civil Aviation in the Modi government, before the TDP quit the NDA over a dispute with the centre.
- Guntur: TDP’s Galla Jayadev will fight the party’s rebel Modugula Venugopala Reddy. Reddy is being fielded by the YSR Congress Party.
- Vishakapatnam: BJP’s candidate Daggubati Purandeswari is the daugther of TDP founder NT Rama Rao. She will take on YSRCP’s MVV Satyanarayana. Daggubati was twice elected as a Congress MP in 2004 and 2009. She lost as a BJP candidate in 2014 from Rajampet.
- Araku: The constituency, which is known for its coffee, will see former Congress leader V Kishore Chandra Deo being fielded by the TDP. In his Congress stint, Deo served as a cabinet minister during the UPA regime.
- Kadapa: The stronghold of YS Rajasekhara Reddy family will field the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s nephew YS Avinash Reddy from the YSRCP. The family has retained this seat since 1989. Avinash will be pitted against his party’s former member Adinarayana Reddy, who quit in 2016 – now representing TDP in this election.
Telangana
The state will see 443 candidates vying for 17 seats.
- Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Asaduddin Owaisi will defend his family-held seat in this election. The Owaisi family has held the Hyderabad seat since 1984.
- Nizamabad: One seat, 185 contenders. Nizamabad will see Telangana Rashtra Samithi founder K Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter Kavitha compete with 179 farmers. The farmers, as a protest against the KCR government, will challenge Kavitha’s re-election bid.
Maharashtra
Seven of the 10 seats in the region of Vidarbha go for polling in the first phase, with 116 candidates on the ballot.
- Nagpur: Among the key ministers in the Modi cabinet, Nitin Gadkari is the incumbent MP for Nagpur, and is being challenged by Nana Patole of the Congress. Patole quit the BJP in 2017 after criticising Prime Minister Modi.
- Chandrapur: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir has been elected four times from Chandrapur, and is up against Suresh Dhanorkar of the Congress.
Bihar
The state will see 44 candidates vying for four seats in the first phase of the election.
- Gaya: The Mahagathbandhan’s ability to combine votes will be closely watched in this seat where Hindustani Awam Morcha’s founder Jitan Ram Manjhi will fight against Janata Dal United’s Vijay Kumar. BJP’s sitting MP Hari Manjhi lost out on representing this seat again as it went to alliance partner JD(U). Manjhi had finished third when he was a JD(U) candidate in 2014 – a time when all parties fought the election here separately.
- Jamui: Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag Paswan looks to retain the seat he won for the Lok Janshakti Party in 2014.
Uttarakhand
The state will see 52 candidates vying for five seats in the first phase of the election.
- Pauri Garhwal: Congress has chosen ex-Facebook executive Manish Khanduri against BJP’s Tirath Singh Rawat. Khanduri is the son of senior BJP leader BC Khanduri who briefly served as the state’s Chief minister. Rawat was the state’s BJP chief till 2015.
Criminal Cases
In phase 1, of the 1,279 candidates contesting seats, the National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms analysed self-sworn affidavits of 1,266 candidates.
- National parties: 225
- State parties: 124
- Registered unrecognised parties: 364
- Independents: 553
A total 213 candidates had criminal cases against them, ranging from murder to kidnapping, crime against women and hate speech.
36 percent of BJP’s candidates have criminal cases lodged against them, while the Congress’ figure stands at 42 percent.
Non-bailable offences with a punishment of at least five years are deemed to be serious criminal charges. These include kidnapping, murder, rape, and offences under the purview of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
19 percent candidates of the BJP and 42 percent of the Congress have serious criminal charges against them.
- Out of the 1,266 candidates that the ADR analysed, 17 percent, or 213 candidates, had self-declared criminal charges against them.
- Of these 213 candidates, 146, or nearly 12 percent, have a serious criminal charge against them.
- Out of the states where minimum 20 aspirants were analysed, Bihar topped the list with a third of total candidates having a serious criminal charge levelled against them.
- Only one of the 33 candidates screened in Jammu & Kashmir had criminal charges—the lowest among the 20 states.
On High Alert
Red alert constituencies are those where three or more contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.
- 37 out of the 91 constituencies going into election on April 11 are red-alert constituencies.
- Nandyal, a town in Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh topped the red-alert chart as eight of the 20 candidates analysed had criminal cases booked against them.
- The next in the list was Nizamabad, the third-largest city in Telangana, with criminal cases against seven contestants. ADR analysed 183 candidates contesting in the city.
Asset Check
- The average assets per candidate contesting in the first phase stood at Rs 6.63 crore.
- Around 401 candidates, or 32 percent of the total candidates analysed, possessed assets worth at least Rs 1 crore.
- The average assets per candidate for 83 Indian National Congress candidates is Rs 21.93 crore. The average assets for 83 BJP candidates stood at Rs 14.56 crore. Thirty-two Bahujan Samaj Party candidates had average assets of Rs 12.63 crore.
Tax Details
- More than half of the overall candidates analysed have not declared their income tax details. Some candidates, however, may be exempted from filing the tax returns.
- There were 70 candidates with assets worth more than Rs 1 crore but have not furnished their tax details along with the affidavit.
- Jayadev Galla of Telugu Desam Party, a sitting member of parliament from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh topped the list of candidates who had furnished their tax details with an annual income of more than Rs 40 crore earned last year.
Educational Qualification
- Of all the candidates fielded in the first phase, 42 percent, or 526 aspirants, have educational qualification between Class 5 and Class 12, while nearly half of them have completed their graduation, the survey showed.
- 66 candidates were illiterate, while 19 were just educated enough to be deemed literate.
- Only 7 percent of the total candidates fielded in this phase are women.