Union Minister Smriti Irani took a swipe at Rahul Gandhi on Saturday during a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi. While addressing the public rally, Irani said Rahul Gandhi spoke about his relations in Amethi and then he went to Wayanad where he declared the Kerala seat as his home as he filed for his nomination for the Lok Sabha elections.

Smriti Irani, who will be contesting her Amethi seat yet again, criticised the Rahul Gandhi for changing his families and said they have seen people changing colours, but for the first time changing families is being witnessed. The Union minister urged the people of Amethi to cast their votes on May 20, the day when Amethi goes for elections. She talked about the benefits of voting for BJP and said, the poor will get free ration for five years, farmers will get Rs 6,000 every month, and will get Rs 5 lakh every year under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

Irani further added that Congress on the other hand has declared that it will calculate the wealth of the people if voted to power. She took a swipe over Congress candidates and said the grand old party is yet to announce its candidates for two key constituencies in Uttar Pradesh – Amethi and Raebareli, which have historically been the Congress’s stronghold.  The BJP leader said that now that the polling in Wayanad has concluded, the Congress candidate will arrive in Amethi, but will first visit the Ram Temple.

She slammed Congress for rejecting the invitation to the Ram Temple Pran Pratishtha and said they rejected the invitation to the Ram temple Pran Pratishtha, now they will go to the Ram temple as they believe that this will get them votes in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections which means now they will go to the extent of betraying god as well.

Bengaluru South sitting MP and BJP’s candidate from the same seat Tejasvi Surya was reported to the chief election officer of Karnataka for uploading a video on X in which he asked for votes based on religion.

Karnataka Chief Election Officer tweeted on Friday during polling in the crucial seat where Tejasvi Surya MP is running against Congress’s Sowmya Reddy. He tweeted, case is booked against Tejasvi Surya MP and Candidate of Bengaluru South PC on 25.04.24 at Jayanagar PS u/s 123(3) for posting a video in ‘X’ handle and soliciting votes on the ground of religion.

Tejasvi urged people to cast votes and utilize their right to do so on multiple occasions. He released the last video at 2:00 PM, mentioning Ram Mandir in addition to border security and Article 370 in his plea to make the most of the final four hours of voting.

Earlier, Tejasvi gave an 80%–20% parallel to implore BJP supporters to turn out in large numbers at the polls. Only 20% of the BJP’s 80% voter base actually turned up to vote. C ongress’ voters are 20 % but they come out and vote 80%.  He added, in most circumstances, this is the actual situation at the polls. Telling the impportance of vote he said that every votes counts. He also urged to vote and added if you don’t, then 20% of Congress will undoubtedly be doing so.

Meanwhile, Karnataka recorded 50.93% voter turnout till 3pm, with Bengaluru South recording 40.77%. Up till 3 pm, Udupi Chikmagalur had the highest turnout (57.49%), Hassan had the next highest percentage at 55.92%, Dakshina Kannada at 58.76%, Chitradurga at 52.14%, Tumkur at 56.62%, Mandya at 57.44%, Mysore at 53.55%, Chamarajanagar at 54.82%, Bangalore Rural at 49.62%, Bangalore North at 41.12%, Bangalore Central at 40.10%, Bangalore South at 40.775, Chikkballapur 55.90%, and Kolar 54.66%.

In the second phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024, over 50% of voters were registered in 13 states and the UTs till 3 p.m. 65% of voters participated in the first round of the Lok Sabha elections.

The 18th Lok Sabha elections are currently in their second phase, with voting for 88 seats taking place across 13 states and union territories. There are more than 1,200 people running for office, four of them are from outside Manipur.

Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, BJP members Tejasvi Surya, Hema Malini, and Arun Govil, Rahul Gandhi and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, DK Suresh, the brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy are among the notable contenders for the second phase.

In 2019, the NDA had won 56 of the 89 seats and the UPA 24. Six of these seats have been redrawn as part of the delimitation exercise.

The first phase of the seven stages of the elections took place on Friday, including 102 seats spread across 21 states and Union territories. Voter turnout was about 65.5% in the first phase, according to the reports.

In biggest festival of democracy, people from all walks of sector took part in it. A video went viral where former India captain and current Indian team head coach Rahul Dravid and former India player and head coach Anil Kumble were seen standing in line  to cast their vote.

Meanwhile, voting started at 7 a.m. and will end at 6 p.m. The Election Commission has extended voting hours for those who are in line by an hour. According to Election Commission figures, the first two hours saw a 9.3% voter turnout throughout the 88 constituencies. By 9 am, Kerala had recorded 8.52%, Karnataka 9.21%, and Madhya Pradesh 13.82%.

In this phase, there were about 15.88 crore eligible voters, comprising 5.929 third-gender electors, 8.08 crore males, and 7.8 crore women. 3.28 crore young voters, aged 20 to 29, are among them; 34.8 lakh of them are first-time voters.