Lok Sabha Elections 2024 Highlights: Voting for final phase to take place today

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi cam down heavily on the opposion and said, "I don't understand that no matter how much disrespect you (opposition) have for the Hindu religion culture, pilgrimage sites, and temples, do you (opposition) have hatred in your mind even for doing meditation? Is it because this is your agenda, the eradication of Sanatana Dharma?"

Congress’s decision to not participate in Exit Polls, on the eve of Phase 7 polling, is an unequivocal confirmation that the Congress has conceded the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, said BJP President JP Nadda. It is not surprising, since the Congress usually opts out when it doesn’t expect results to go in its favour, but has no compunction showing up, if it thinks it has even an outside chance, he added. 

Polling preparations completed at the world’s highest polling station located at an altitude of 15,256 feet in Tashigang village in Himachal Pradesh. 

Congress Spokesperson Pawan Khera has said that his party will not participate in exit poll debates on TV as it does not want to indulge in speculation.

Bihar Chief Electoral Officer HR Srinivasa stated that all arrangements have been made as eight Lok Sabha seats will go to polls in the last phase on June 1. Acording to him more than 1.62 crore citizens will exercise their voting right in final phase.

Fourteen people, including 10 polling personnel, have died due to heatstroke in Bihar in the last 24 hours, officials said on Friday afternoon.

According to Disaster Management Department, most of the fatalities were reported from Bhojpur, where five officials on election duty died of heatstroke.

Three election officials died in Rohtas, and one each died in Kaimur and Aurangabad districts, it said.

Gorakhpur Deputy District Election Officer Vineet Kumar Singh said that polling parties have been dispatched for all 5 assembly seats of Gorakhpur and 3 assembly seats of Bainspur. In these 8 assembly seats, there are 3271 polling booths.

Thirteen Lok Sabha seats, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Varanasi, will go to polls in the last and seventh phase of the general elections on Saturday. Polling in the state, which sends 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament, was held in all seven phases of the election.

"Tomorrow is the last stage of the festival of democracy. I hope that every citizen will exercise their voting rights," he said.

Polling for 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab and the lone Chandigarh seat will be held on Saturday, with INDIA bloc allies Congress and AAP contesting separately and the SAD and BJP also deciding to test the poll waters alone. Prominent candidates in the fray are four-time MP Preneet Kaur, former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, three-time MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Ravneet Singh Bittu. The BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal are contesting the Lok Sabha polls on their own for the first time since 1996 while two INDIA bloc parties - the Congress and AAP have fielded their own candidates. The Sukhbir Badal-led party walked out of the NDA in 2020 over the now-repealed farm laws. Besides the Congress, AAP, SAD and the BJP, two other parties --Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) and the Bahujan Samaj Party have also fielded their candidates. Among the prominent faces, BJP nominee and four-time MP Preneet Kaur is seeking re-election from the Patiala parliamentary constituency. Three-time MP and SAD's Harsimrat Kaur Badal and BJP's Parampal Kaur Sidhu, a former IAS officer, are trying their luck from Bathinda while former CM and Congress candidate Channi and BJP nominee Sushil Rinku are in the fray from Jalandhar reserve constituency. Former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and BJP candidate Dinesh Babbu are fighting from Gurdaspur. Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring is contesting against BJP's Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana.

Mayurbhanj, Odisha: Polling officials reached the centre in a remote village to ensure the participation of people in the seventh phase of Lok Sabha polls.

The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

As the voting date inches closer, politicians in Himachal Pradesh are letting go of no opportunity in trolling their rivals, more often than not choosing as their weapon the social media and its memetic powers. A scramble for gaffes is on between the two key political parties in the fray here – Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party –, whose followers have been posting slip-ups and blunders of their rivals, in some cases, to cut them down to size, in others, to bring to fore internal cracks.

As south Bengal, a traditional TMC stronghold, heads to the polls on Saturday, the region faces a significant electoral battle testing the party's dominance amid an 'old versus new' power struggle, with the national spotlight on Sandeshkhali in Basirhat due to allegations of atrocities on women and land grabs. The seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal will cover Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jayanagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin, and Kolkata Uttar, where the TMC secured victories in the 2019 elections. The results in the nine constituencies will be a key for the TMC's dominance in the region, seeking to maintain its grip amidst challenges from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left-Congress alliance.

"Currently, PM Modi is meditating and praying at the divine feet of Bharat Mata, at Kanniyakumari... He is not praying for personal salvation but for the upliftment of Bharat. Vivekananda Rock  Memorial is a sterling symbol of national unity and timeless inspiration," he said.

PM Narendra Modi is meditating here at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, where Swami Vivekananda did meditation. He will meditate here till 1st June.

As the election campaign of the Lok Sabha polls ended on Thursday, Congress' star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi's marathon election campaign in this poll season clocked 108 public meetings and roadshows, more than 100 media bytes, one television interview, and five print interviews spread over the last 55 days, the party said.