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Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The General election to elect the members of the 18th Lok Sabha in India is expected to take place in seven phases spread over 44 days starting April 19 in the world’s largest election, counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.
Announcing the poll schedule to elect the 543-member Lok Sabha, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told a news conference on Saturday that over 97 crore voters–49.7 crore male and 47.1 crore female–are eligible to cast their votes across 10.5 lakh polling booths
The ruling alliance of NDA is all set to go up against the newly formed I.N.D.I.A. alliance. With the official tenure of the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led 17th Lok Sabha session set to expire on 16 June 2024, all political parties have kickstarted their poll campaigns.
Elections for the 17th Lok Sabha took place in 2019, marking a landslide victory for the BJP-led NDA, who won 353 out of 543 seats. BJP on its own won a total of 303 seats, which was 31 more than the required number of seats for the majority, i.e., 272.
According to the official announcement made by the ECI (Election Commission of India) on March 16, the General Elections 2024 will begin in the month of April, and will conclude with the counting in June.
As per the ECI’s official announcement, the General Elections will commence on April 19, with phase one polls, and will conclude on June 1, with phase seven polls. The counting is scheduled to take place on June 4.
The General Election of 2014 was held in nine phases, while in 2019, it was reduced to seven phases. Following the 2019 trend, ECI has again decided to organise the 2024 General Elections in seven phases, starting on April 19 and concluding on June 1.
During the 2019 General Elections, according to ECI, India had a total of 90 crore eligible voters for the mega elections, with around 15 million in addition as first-time voters. Notably, according to reports for the General Elections 2024, the official number of voters is all set to witness a significant rise of 7 crore, taking the official number of eligible voters from 90 crore to 97 crore.
The General Elections of 2019 saw the BJP-led NDA alliance registering a mammoth victory over the opposition parties by winning 353 of the total 543 official seats, with BJP alone winning 303 seats, which in itself claims BJP won by a majority in the elections. The main opposing party INC (Indian National Congress), saw a slight rise in the number of seats, i.e., from 44 in 2014 to 52 in 2019, but still failed to claim the status of leader of the opposition as they failed to secure the ten percent of seats required for the status.
After failing miserably in both the 2014 and 2019 General Elections, the Congress has decided to contest the 2024 General Elections under the banner of I.N.D.I.A. alliance, which is a coalition of 26 parties involving major state-level parties such as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Trinamool Congress (TMC), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), etc.
However, in a major turn of events, the newly formed I.N.D.I.A. alliance suffered a huge blow, months before the 2024 General Elections, when one of the key members in the formation, Bihar’s Chief Minister’s Nitish Kumar-led JDU (Janata Dal United), decided to part ways and joined NDA, resulting in major blow in their stand against the ruling party amongst the voters.
The ruling alliance of NDA will once again be led by the BJP in the upcoming General Elections, with a total of 37 parties coming together under the NDA banner.
The alliance of 25 parties, including the Indian National Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party and many more major state-level parties, will be challenging the PM Narendra Modi-led NDA in the upcoming General Election, under the banner of I.N.D.I.A alliance.
