Elections in Mumbai and towns connected to the Gandhi family are set to take place in India’s fifth phase of voting.
The biggest election in history started on April 19 and will end on June 1. The votes will be tallied on June 4.
89.5 million voters will select representatives for 49 seats in the phase that begins on Monday, which has the fewest number of seats up for election.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh of Lucknow and Trade Minister Piyush Goyal of Mumbai are among the well-known contenders running on Monday; both cities have had historically low election turnout.
Residents of those cities were especially urged by the Election Commission on Sunday to “erase the stigma” of urban apathy.
Just a few days after at least 14 people were killed when a large billboard crashed during a downpour, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, “Better infrastructure and more ‘ease of living’ is at the core of our vision for Mumbai.”
In addition to Wayanad in the south, which has already cast a ballot, two boroughs belonging to the Congress party’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in politically significant Uttar Pradesh will also hold elections. Rahul Gandhi, the scion, is running for the seat of Raebareli.
In India, a candidate may run for more than one constituency, but they may only represent one.
Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party and a former Raebareli member, urged people to support her son in a district that has been ruled by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for the past ten years.
The Amethi candidate is Smriti Irani, the minister for women and child development. She unsettled Rahul Gandhi in 2019 to take the seat that his family had held for the last forty years.
In Kaiserganj, where the BJP is fielding the son of a former wrestling federation chairman despite his father being accused of sexually assaulting female wrestlers, there is another electorate in the state that is being closely monitored.
The BJP, which is currently in power, was first concerned about low voter turnout, and observers think this raised questions about the party’s and its allies’ hopes for a resounding win.
Following a weak showing in the first round, more voters began to cast ballots, with an average turnout of 66.95 percent in the first four stages and 69 percent in the final one on May 13.
Opponents of Modi have said that he is singled out for criticism because he is a Muslim minority and wants to appease radical voters. Modi is poised to serve as prime minister for a record third term.
The Congress party has refuted Modi’s repeated accusations that it is preparing to give social benefits to Muslims at the expense of underprivileged tribal tribes and Hindu castes.
Modi recently declared his intention to “not do Hindu-Muslim (in politics)” in a television interview that was shown following the fourth round.
The opposition INDIA alliance, which is made up of the Congress and twelve other political parties, received a significant boost when Delhi Chief Minister and ardent opponent of Prime Minister Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, was granted interim reprieve by the court and permitted to run in the elections.
