India General Election 2024 Live Updates: Phase 7 turnout crosses 58% at 5 pm; TMC, PDP skip INDIA bloc meet at Kharge’s residence

Amid heatwave conditions across large parts of North India, voter turnout in the seventh and last phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on Saturday reached 40 per cent at 1 pm, as per the Election Commission’s Voter Turnout app.

The app, which shows real-time approximate turnout percentages, showed an overall turnout of 40.09 per cent at 1 pm for the 57 Lok Sabha constituencies across eight states and Union Territories. Turnout in Himachal Pradesh, which had all its four seats go to polls on Saturday, was the highest at 1 pm at 48.63 per cent, while Bihar’s eight seats had the lowest turnout at 35.65 per cent.

Top leaders of the INDIA bloc will meet here on Saturday to discuss their strategy for the counting of votes on June 4, even as the TMC and PDP are set to skip the meeting.

Senior leaders of the Congress, CPI-M, CPI, DMK, AAP, RJD, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) will hold discussions at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence this afternoon.

TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already said they will not attend the meeting as there are elections in the state, while PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti is likely to skip the meeting.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann are also likely to attend the meeting, besides senior Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and K C Venugopal.

DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said party leader T R Baalu will attend the meeting.

BSP candidate for Ferozepur Lok Sabha seat Surinder Kamboj has been booked for allegedly getting his video recorded while casting his vote and making it public, officials said on Saturday.

Kamboj was filmed by an unidentified person while casting his vote at a polling station in Guruharsahai's Jiva Rai village.

Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner Rajesh Dhiman said Kamboj made the video public.

A case has been registered against Kamboj and an unidentified person under relevant sections of the Representation of People's Act, 1951 and the Indian Penal Code.

Exit polls in India are conducted by a number of organisations, often in tie-ups with media organisations. The surveys can be conducted face to face or online.

Exit polls give an indication about how people voted in an election. They are arrived at on the basis of interviews with voters right after they exit the polling stations. Apart from this, other calculations related to voter data are also considered.

Sita, the sister-in-law of jailed former chief minister Hemant Soren, claimed that the voting process was being intentionally delayed.

"I have visited several booths in Dumka urban and found irregularities. I have informed the deputy commissioner in this regard. Inexperienced booth level officers (BLOs) have been deployed due to which electors are facing trouble," Sita said.

She alleged, "The delay is being done deliberately. I will write to Election Commission to cancel the voting here and conduct a re-poll." Sita raised the issue after receiving complaints from voters about delays at booth numbers 44 and 45.

Sita, a three-time JMM MLA, joined the BJP on March 20, citing "isolation" and "neglect" by the JMM since the death of her husband, Durga Soren, in 2009.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar denied her allegations and said polling is underway smoothly across three Lok Sabha constituencies — Dumka, Rajmahal and Godda.

n a phased election such as the current one, the first and last days of voting also become big events. But for many in India, the most awaited event is the day when exit polls are released.

Exit polls give estimates about how people voted in an election. They are arrived at on the basis of interviews with voters right after they exit the polling stations, as well as other calculations related to voter data.

A large number of Indians give the same importance to exit polls as they do to the actual results.

The science of surveys, which includes exit polls, works on the assumption that data were collected after interviewing a large number of respondents using a structured questionnaire, whether over the telephone or face-to-face.

As voting in the last phase of Lok Sabha polls 2024 draws to a close on Saturday (June 1), all eyes will be on the exit polls, which will give an idea of how India voted in the 18th general elections.

The exit poll results will start coming in after 6 pm on June 1 (Saturday). The counting of votes and result declaration will take place on June 4 (Tuesday).

"Today, I am raising an issue relating to deletion of electorate names from the voters' list. This is happening on a large scale in many areas. Sometimes, name of a person from a particular community or caste gets deleted," says Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal as 57 constituencies go to polls in the seventh and final phase of polls.

About 28 per cent polling recorded till 11 am from nine constituencies in West Bengal.

According to Election Commission, till 11 am, about 1,450 complaints were lodged by political parties, alleging EVM malfunctioning, agents being stopped from entering polling booths and voters being threatened or stopped from going to cast their votes in different constituencies.

Polling is being held in nine seats in West Bengal amid tight security arrangements which are Dum Dum (24.83 %), Barasat (27.86 %), Basirhat (32.57 %), Jaynagar (30.25 %), Mathurapur (30.50 %), Diamond Harbour (31.51 %), Jadavpur (26.59 %), Kolkata Dakshin (24.02 %) and Kolkata Uttar (24.02 %) seats.

A voter turnout of 26.3 per cent was recorded till 11 am in the seventh and final phase.

Here’s a state-wise breakdown

Tashigang is a tiny village perched high in the icy Himalayas at a staggering altitude of 15,256 feet. This village holds the distinction of hosting the highest polling station in the world.

Located near the India-China border, the Spiti valley is part of the Mandi Lok Sabha seat, one of the four parliamentary constituencies in Himachal Pradesh and the second largest in India. Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is up against the Congress's Vikramaditya Singh from the seat.

The polling station at Tashigang, serving 62 voters from Tashigang and Gete, has been made a model polling booth.

Rose water being served to voters at a polling booth in Ludhiana

At Ferozepur, water being served in earthen utensils at a green booth.

Now, the same day that it announced the seven-phase general elections, the Election Commission had also circulated an advisory to all the state electoral officers on the risks from heatwave and the steps to be taken on the voting day to minimise these risks for the voters. It talked about the special arrangements to be made at every polling booth – drinking water, shade, medical kits, toilets, queue management – to deal with the likely impacts of excessively high temperatures.

A voter turnout of 11.31 per cent was recorded in the first two hours of polling in the seventh and final phase.

Here's a state-wise breakdown till 9 am

"Modi has accepted his defeat as he has left Kashi. People of Kashi are with us. Congress has certainly taken the right decision," says Congress candidate from Varanasi Ajay Rai on Congress deciding to skip Lok Sabha exit poll debates.

"By not choosing to meditate at the banks of Ganga River and going to the South, I believe he (PM Modi) has insulted Kashi. He should have stayed in Kashi," he said after casting his vote.

With the BJD having the advantage of being the state-bred regional party, the BJP harped on the exponential rise of Patnaik’s close confidant and bureaucrat-turned-politician V K Pandian, and on his Tamil origins.

In his very first meeting in Odisha, on May 6, Modi set the tone by saying that a BJP CM would take oath in the state on June 10. Pandian responded by saying that Patnaik would not only return as CM but be sworn in on June 9.

For the BJD too, the elections are momentous, as a sixth straight term in power would help Patnaik beat the record of Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim to become the longest-serving CM in the country.

Meanwhile, the Congress tried to build a narrative as the “real Opposition”, highlighting the BJD and BJP’s efforts to form a coalition.

The Basirhat Lok Sabha seat including Sandeshkhali has been a TMC stronghold and the party remains confident of taking the lead in most segments. This is even if Sandeshkhali goes with BJP following charges against local TMC leaders.

A total of 904 candidates are in the fray Saturday. The BSP has fielded the most candidates at 56, followed by the BJP with 51, and the Congress 31. With all of Punjab voting, the state has the most candidates in this phase with 328, followed by 144 candidates for 13 seats in UP, 134 for 8 seats in Bihar, and 124 for 9 seats in West Bengal.

Amid tight security arrangements, polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.

INDIA bloc allies -- the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) -- are contesting separately while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) are contesting the Lok Sabha polls on their own for the first time since 1996.

The last phase will see voting for all 13 seats in Punjab and all four seats in Himachal Pradesh. The other states that will vote are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal — polling spans all seven phases — and Jharkhand and Odisha. The Union Territory of Chandigarh too will vote Saturday.