Voting underway in seven states, grenade attack in Kashmir, EVM snags reported
New Delhi: A grenade attack on a polling booth in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, violence in West Bengal and snags in EVMs were reported as voters queued up outside booths in the initial hours of polling on Monday for the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 51 constituencies spread across seven states.
Political heavyweights Rajnath Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Smriti Irani are in the fray in this phase in which polling is underway in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 12 in Rajasthan, seven seats each in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, five in Bihar and four in Jharkhand.
In Jammu and Kashmir, polling began on a violent note with militants lobbing a grenade towards a polling station in Pulwama district, police said.
A grenade was lobbed towards Rohmoo polling station in Pulwama but there were no reports of any casualties in the the blast, a police official said.
Polling is being held in Pulwama and Shopian districts of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency which also includes Anantnag and Kulgam districts.
The Lok Sabha polls to this constituency are being held in three phases due to security reasons.
There are 18 candidates in the fray for Anantnag constituency including PDP president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti.
West Bengal also reported stray incidents of violence in Bangaon, Hooghly and Barrackpore seats, an election official said.
However, further details were awaited.
Around 16.68 per cent of nearly 1.17 crore voters cast their ballots in the first two hours of polling in the seven constituencies of West Bengal.
In Uttar Pradesh, nearly 10 per cent turnout was recorded in the first two hours of polling in 14 Lok Sabha seats where Union ministers Singh and Irani, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi are in the fray.
Among early voters in the state capital included Home Minister Singh, BSP supremo Mayawati, Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma and DGP OP Singh.
Election officials in Lucknow said polling was going on smoothly, barring some complaints of EVM malfunctioning, which were attended to immediately.
Polling was underway in Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Mohanlalganj (SC), Lucknow, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Bahraich (SC), Kaiserganj and Gonda constituencies where a total of 182 candidates are in the fray.
Rajasthan witnessed over 13 per cent turnout in the first two hours of polling in 12 Lok Sabha seats where two former Olympians are among the 124 candidates in fray.
Polling began at 7 am in Ganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jaipur rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa and Nagaur.
In Madhya Pradesh, an average 12.54 per cent turnout was recorded in the first three hours of polling in seven Lok Sabha seats.
Polling was underway since 7 am in the seven constituencies - Tikamgarh, Damoh, Khajuraho, Satna, Rewa, Hoshangabad and Betul - where long queues were seen at some booths.
"Minor issues related to EVMs were reported at some places but they were sorted out," officials said.
Jharkhand saw an estimated 12.22 per cent of the 65,87,028 electorate cast their votes till 9 am on Monday in four Lok Sabha constituencies.
Voters queued up before booths in Koderma, Ranchi, Khunti (ST) and Hazaribag constituencies since early morning to elect their representatives from among 61 contestants.
Bihar saw an estimated 8.92 per cent of over 87.66 lakh voters exercised their franchise during the first two hours of polling in five Lok Sabha seats.
Polling is underway in Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Saran and Hajipur parliamentary seats amid tight security, with no untoward incident reported from any part of the state, he said.
Barring a few instances of EVM glitches, which was taken care by polling officials, polling has largely been peaceful in five seats, officials said.
"The voting process was delayed by around 30 minutes in six polling stations of Saran, two in Madhubani, one each in Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur constituency due to technical glitches in EVMs, but the polling officials have attended to the issues," officials said.
In the fifth phase of the seven-phase poll, about 8.75 crore people will decide the fate of 674 candidates.
The stakes are high for the ruling BJP and its allies as it had swept 40 of these seats in 2014, leaving just two for the Congress and the rest for other opposition parties such as the Trinamool Congress (seven).
With this phase, election will be over in 424 seats and polling in the remaining 118 seats will be held on May 12 and 19.
Election to 542 Lok Sabha seats is being conducted in seven phases between April 11 and May 19. Election in Vellore constituency in Tamil Nadu had been cancelled following excess use of money power.
Results will be declared on May 23.
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Post poll TN alliances divided in supporting TVK
Chennai (PTI): In a changed political atmosphere in Tamil Nadu with no single political party having a simple majority to form the government post the Assembly election, opinion is divided among the allies led by the Dravidian majors in extending external support to Vijay-led TVK in government formation.
Both the DMK and AIADMK are at unease as the Congress and also a section in the AIADMK express willingness to extend external support to Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagtam in forming the government.
Post poll, the TVK's political prospects appear to impact alliances led by both the Dravidian majors in a different manner, triggering a speculation of a split.
Leema Rose Martin, who won from Lalgudi on an AIADMK ticket, has stated that talks were underway on extending support to the TVK. Her son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna, who won from Villivakkam is TVK's general secretary.
On May 5, former AIADMK minister O S Manian, emerging from his meeting with party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, stated that AIADMK would not support TVK in forming the government.
The AIADMK, which finished third in the elections with 47 seats has cancelled its meeting of MLAs designate on Wednesday amidst a difference in extending external support to the TVK, which won 108 seats, including two seats by its founder Vijay.
As Vijay is gearing up for his swearing-in on May 7, the police have tightened security at his residence here. The party has lodged its MLA-elect at a resort in Mamallapuram and has simultaneously engaged in talks with the Congress and AIADMK, a source said.
The DMK that won 59 seats on its own, has convened a meeting of its newly elected legislators on May 7 evening and the party is likely to elect the youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, who won from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni as its legislature party leader.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal admitted that TVK chief Vijay requested the Congress for support to form the government.
"The INC is clear that the mandate in Tamil Nadu is for a secular government, committed to protecting the Constitution in letter and spirit. The INC is determined not to allow the BJP and its proxies to run the government of Tamil Nadu in any manner. Thiru Vijay has also spoken about drawing inspiration from Perunthalaivar Kamaraj," he said.
Accordingly, the Congress leadership has directed the TNCC to take a final decision on Vijay’s request, keeping in view the sentiments of the state as reflected in the electoral verdict, Venugopal said in a statement.
DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai slammed the Congress decision and said the move to ally with TVK, pledging the support of its five MLAs to the party, was tantamount to "backstabbing the DMK and the people of Tamil Nadu."
"They have betrayed the mandate given by the people. Even before the ink on the returning officer’s signature on the victory certificate has dried, they have chosen to go ahead with this alliance," he told PTI.
The most important question was who took this "foolhardy decision, and how is it going to backfire on the Congress?" he asked.
"I don’t think they had any serious deliberation on this. The larger issue is their opposition to the BJP, which is their ideological enemy. We have supported the Congress throughout. It was our leader M K Stalin, who named Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate when the BJP and RSS were criticising him. And now, within a day, they say they are supporting TVK. This is not the mandate of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Saravanan said.
The Congress' exit from its long-standing alliance with the DMK will be a significant moment in the political scenario of the state, commentator and political analyst Sumanth Raman said.
The Congress may be betting on the TVK as a long-term partner option, but that comes with risks, as the TVK is as yet an unknown quantity, he said.
"For the DMK, if the TVK+Congress becomes the choice of the minorities as it well could, it is an existential threat. It was the minority vote that gave the DMK alliance a 12%-15% cushion in the polls. If that goes, their chances of winning drops dramatically," Raman said on 'X.'
The Congress won 5 seats. However, DMK's other allies, the IUML, VCK, CPI and CPI (M) and DMDK have categorically stated that they would not support TVK.
As of now, the TVK requires the support of 11 MLAs to attain a simple majority of 118 to form the government.
The PMK, which won 4 seats and AMMK one - both allies of AIADMK - have not announced their decision yet.
"AIADMK’s real post-result drama may not be outside the party, but inside it. Whispers from the west and north suggest that a Coimbatore hand and a Villupuram voice may soon ask the question everyone is avoiding: Is it time to save the party from the leadership, before the cadre are forced to do it themselves? In politics, coups don’t begin with slogans. They begin with silence, phone calls and “review meetings,” Aspire Swaminathan, who is credited with founding the AIADMK IT wing in 2014, said on 'X.'
He has resigned from the AIADMK in 2021 and now acts an as independent political analyst.
