The Election Commission of India has announced that the Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases in which three states will have voting in all the 7 phases while four states will have voting in 4 phases. This distribution of votes into various phases has raised several doubts on whether the Election Commission has spelt out the schedule to turn it into BJP’s advantage.
The combination of states according to the announced schedule, according to political analysis, could help the Bharatiya Janata Party. For instance, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will have voting in all the 7 phases where as in 2014 these states saw voting in five and six phases, respectively. Meanwhile, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha will vote in four phases, according to the 2019 schedule.
Despite the EC stating that this elaborate exercise of diving the election in so many phases is for logistical and security concerns, several political parties are casting aspersions as to why the multi-phase polling is spread out this way. Let us take the case of West Bengal. For 42 seats, the state will vote in 5 phases while Odisha will vote in four phases just for 21 seats. Political analysts state that spreading the schedule over several days can help the BJP plan its strategy cautiously to reduce its losses and maximise gains.
In contrast, states like Tamil Nadu which has 39 seats and Andhra Pradesh which has 25 seats will be going for polls in a single phase as the BJP is aware of the poll arithmetic and that it doesn’t weird much influence in these states. Same is the case with other Southern states, except Karnataka. Adding to this are other states such as Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh where the BJP is confident of its votebank and hence, will probably have voting in a single phase.
However, those in the Hindi heartland, such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, Odisha could turn either ways for the BJP. Therefore, though the Election Commission states that it could be for peaceful conduct of the elections as it is a massive exercise, one cannot but wonder why the Hindi and BJP-dominant states have elections in multiple phases, while most of the South has elections in just a single phase!
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