Lok Sabha polls 2024: Polling in Rajasthan in two phases on April 19 and April 26

The Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan will be held in two phases wherein polling will be held on April 19, and April 26. The state has 25 Lok Sabha constituencies. The Election Commission announced that the general elections will be held in the country from April 19, and the counting of votes has been scheduled for June 4.

The state has more than 50 million electorates, including 1.2 million octogenarians who will arrive in across 51,756 polling booths set up in the northwestern state for the LS polls this year, a report by Hindustan Times quoted state election commissioner Praveen Gupta as saying.

The commissioner also said that at least 50% of the voting stations in Rajasthan are set to have a webcasting system for the first time.

According to the ECI, polling in first phase includes Sriganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jaipur, Jaipur Rural, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa, and Tonk-Sawai Madhopur. The remaining constituencies comprising Nagaur, Ajmer, Pali, Jalore, and Jodhpur in southern Rajasthan will witness voting in the second phase on April 26, 2024.

Bharatiya Janata Party currently has 21 MPs in Rajasthan, however, Rajasmand, Alwar, Jaipur Rural, and Nagaur are vacant constituencies. The saffron party won 24 seats in the previous Lok Sabha elections out of the 25, with the only remaining seat going to its ally Rashtriya Loktantrik Party.

Earlier this month, BJP announced its first list of candidates for Rajasthan with 15 names, repeating seven of its MPs, including three of its ministers and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. Two Congress leaders— Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya and Jyoti Mirdha, who defected to the BJP have also been accommodated in the first list.

The Lok Sabha elections come months after the BJP swept the Assembly Polls winning 115 out of the 199 seats, while the Congress ended up second bagging 69 seats in the state assembly polls. After winning, the saffron party chose 56-year-old Bhajanlal Sharma as the BJP's face for the state and the new chief minister of Rajasthan.