New Delhi, Nominations for 86 seats to which polls are slated for May 13, would start from tomorrow with the issuing of notification for the fifth and last phase of Lok Sabha elections.
Of these seats, 14 are in Uttar Pradesh, all the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, two in Jammu and Kashmir, eleven in West Bengal, nine in Punjab, five in Uttarakhand, four in Himachal Pradesh, the sole seats of Chandigarh and Puducherry.
With the issuing of notification, nominations would start for the fifth phase which would continue till April 24. Scrutiny would be taken up the next day and candidates can withdraw their nominations till April 28.
In this phase, J and K’s Baramullah and Ladakh seats and communally sensitive districts of western UP including Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit, Rampur, Bijnore, Moradabad and Bareilly will go to polls.
In Punjab, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Jallandhar and Ludhiana are among the nine seats that will go for elections in this phase.
The West Bengal constituencies in this phase include politically prominent Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, Kolkata Dakshin and Kolkata Uttar.
Prominent candidates in UP whose fate would be decided in the last phase include controversial BJP leader Varun Gandhi (Pilibhit), SP candidate and cine star Jaya Prada (Rampur), cricketer turned politician and Congress candidate Mohammad Azaharudin (Moradabad), Union Minister of State for Steel and Congress candidate Jitin Prasada (Dhaurara), former Union Minister and BJP candidate Maneka Gandhi (Aonla) National Conference (NC) and candidate for the Baramulla Lok Sahba seat for Sharief-ud-Din Shariq.
In the last phase, over 1.84 crore electorate would exercise their franchise at 20,709 polling booths in 14 constituencies spread over 14 districts of the state, while over 23,815 Electronic Voting machines (EVMs) would be used.
In UP, polling in the fifth phase would take place in Saharanpur, Bijnore, Nagina, Moradabad, Amroha, Rampur, Sambhal, Badaun, Aonla, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Khiri and Dhuarhara Lok Sabha constituencies.
In the 2004 Parliamentary elections, the Samajwadi Party had won six seats of these 14 seats, followed by BSP (three), Congress (one), BJP (two), RLD(one) and JD-U (one).
The contest in Baramulla has become interesting with separatist leader and Chairman of Peoples’ Conference Sajjad Lone deciding to join the electoral fray.
The constituency has a total electorate of 10,54,086, which includes 1,627 service electors. Out of the total registered voters, there are 5,04,308 women voters. Abdul Rashid Shaheen of NC won is the sitting MP.
Ladakh has a total electorate of 1,52,391 which includes 3,924 service electors. Out of the total registered voters, 74,492 are women.
As many as 476 polling stations, spread across four segments of Ladakh will be set up for the voters.
Counting of votes would be taken up on May 16.