The third phase of Lok Sabha elections will be held today. 91 parliamentary constituencies, spread over 11 states and 3 Union Territories will go to polls in this phase. These states and Union Territories are Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep. The polling will start at 7 AM and will end at 6 PM. Voting will also take place for 70 Assembly seats in Odisha today.
A total of 1,419 candidates are in the fray for 91 Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in this phase. Prominent among them are Meira Kumar, Kapil Sibal, Kamal Nath, Ajay Makan and Sandeep Dikshit of Congress, Ajit Singh of RLD and VK Singh and Harsh Vardhan of BJP and Shazia Ilmi, Ashutosh and Rakhi Birla of Aam Aadmi Party.
Ten of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in this phase. These are Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Kairana, Aligarh, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautambudh Nagar and Bulandshahar.
All 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will also go to polls today. In Bihar, six of the 40 Lok Sabha seats will go polls in this phase. Polling will take place for all 20 seats in Kerala where ruling Congress-led UDF and opposition CPI(M)-led LDF are locked in a fierce battle. Among the prominent candidate in the state are Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh, KC Venugopal, KV Thomas, Mullapally Ramachandran and PC Chacko of Congress and E Ahamed of IUML.
Like Kerala, voting will also take place today for all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, where a four-cornered contest is expected between Congress, the BJP-led combine, Indian National Lok Dal and Aam Aadmi Party. Among leading candidates in Haryana are Deepender Hooda and Naveen Jindal of Congress, Rao Inderjit Singh of BJP and Yogendra Yadav of AAP.