Voting took place in Kerala’s Vadakara constituency on April 26. Kerala’s 271 million voters were eligible to vote in this year’s Lok Sabha elections, which are being held alongside legislative elections in four states – Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim.
This year’s Indian Lok Sabha election was the world’s largest, with a total of 968 million voters eligible to cast their ballots.
Background to the Lok Sabha elections:
India’s upcoming Lok Sabha elections, always a tense contest, pits the BJP-led NDA against a near-unified opposition called the Indian Union, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a third term in power.
The election campaign has been chaotic, with opposition parties complaining about a central government crackdown on party leaders, many of whom have faced legal action and jail time, which the BJP says is the result of corruption by party leaders.
Meanwhile, the BJP is facing criticism from the opposition for being a disproportionate beneficiary of the controversial electoral bond scheme, with more than 50% of the revenue – over Rs 6,000 crore – flowing to the saffron party.
Ahead of the elections, the two have traded accusations of hate speech, with Hassan’s sex scandal and Amit Shah’s fake video also becoming major issues. Meanwhile, PM Modi has continued to claim that the BJP-led NDA will win over 400 seats, while Rahul Gandhi’s saffron camp has projected 180 seats.
Regarding the poll issues, the idea of a developed India, questions over employment and demand for a socio-economic caste survey dominated the poll rallies.
What happened in the 2019 election?
In 2019, Vadakara constituency had 12,88,926 voters but the voter turnout was only 82.7 per cent.
INC candidate K. Muralidharan had won in Vadakara constituency in the 2019 elections with a margin of 84,663 votes.
The INC was part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
