The voting started at 7 a.m. and will continue until 5 p.m. The Election Commission gives an extra hour of buffer time for voters who are currently in the voting line. On April 19, up to 109 seats went to the polls in Phase 1. The first phase saw a voting participation of around 62 %. Today 26th of April phase 2, up to 15.88 crore electors are eligible to vote. The voting population consists of 8.08 crore men, 7.8 crore women, and 5,929 third-gender electors. There are also 3.28 crore young voters between the ages of 20 and 29. 34.8 lakh first-time voters have registered to vote in this phase.
All 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, 14 in Karnataka, 13 in Rajasthan, eight each in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, seven in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, three in West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, and one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, and Tripura will go to the Phase 2 polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged voters to vote in record numbers in the second phase of Lok Sabha Elections 2024, which began today. stating that a high voter participation enhances democracy, the Prime Minister also urged youth voters and women voters to vote in large numbers. Congress leaders, including Malikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi, issued voting appeals, claiming that the election was to'save the constitution'.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor, the BJP's youth icon Tejasvi Surya, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, actor-turned-politicians Hema Malini and Arun Govil, and the speaker of the outgoing Lok Sabha, Om Birla, are among the 1,210 candidates in the Phase 2 Lok Sabha elections. Voting for the 543 Lok Sabha seats will take place in seven phases. The final phase will be placed on June 1. On June 4, the votes for all seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be counted.
