As Delhi and neighbouring Gurgaon were polling yesterday, several top politicians as well as celebrities went to vote in the sixth phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Among the star voters were President Ram Nath Kovind, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose party has fielded candidates in all seven seats in Delhi, also voted at a polling booth in Civil Lines. Prominent candidates in Delhi are Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwari of the BJP, Atishi and Raghav Chadha of the AAP, and Sheila Dixit and Ajay Maken of the Congress. Union Minister Harsh Vardhan is also seeking reelection Delhi's Chandni Chowk.
The contest in Gurgaon is mainly between sitting BJP MP Rao Inderjit Singh and Captain Ajay Singh Yadav of the Congress. Mehmood Khan of the Jannayak Janata Party-Aam Aadmi Party alliance and Virender Rana of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) are also in the fray.
Cricketer Virat Kohli was among the early voters who turned up at a polling booth in Gurgaon.
Even though Delhi only sends seven MPs to the 545-seat Lok Sabha, it is considered a crucial indicator to who will form the government in the Centre. It has been observed that since 1998, whichever party has got the higher number of seats in Delhi has also gone ahead to win the overall general election. In 2014, all 7 seats were won by the BJP.
Voting began at 7 am today for the 59 parliamentary constituencies going to polls across six states and one union territory. After today's voting, polling for the 2019 general elections will be complete in 483 of the total 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. The result for all 543 seats will be declared together on May 23.
Here are the highlights of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Delhi, and neighbouring Gurgaon:
Mohammad Shokeen and twelve members of his family were among the several voters in Delhi who could not cast their votes on Sunday as their names were missing from voter's list despite them living at same address for 32 years.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and his family members voted during the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections, at a polling booth in Delhi's Greater Kailash.
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora voted a polling station, at Nirman Bhawan in New Delhi, along with his family
Till the assembly elections in 2015, Mr Singh used to cycle to the polling booth to cast his vote. This time however, he reached the booth in a car. He was later wheeled into the polling both using a chair.
Mr Singh suffered a paralytic attack around three months ago and has been on complete bed rest.
"I will vote for those who worked for us," he said on his way in to the polling booth.
Interestingly, Mr Singh doesn't know there's a party called AAP and that Arvind Kejriwal is the chief minister of Delhi. "He doesn''t even know that the Aam Aadmi Party exists. For him, every election has been a contest between the BJP and the Congress," his youngest son, Jasbeer Singh, 63, said.
Jasbeer Singh claims his father has never missed out on an election since 1951.
Delhi: Earlier visuals of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Robert Vadra casting their vote at a polling booth in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya at Lodhi Estate #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/BNssOoIAQq
- ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2019
Sonia Gandhi was accompanied by former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who is contesting from the North East Delhi parliamentary constituency against state BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party's Dilip Pandey.
In 2014, the BJP won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his family vote in Civil Lines.
Gautam Gambhir is up against Congress's Arvinder Singh Lovely and Aam Aadmi Party's Atishi from East Delhi constituency.
Ajay Maken is contesting from the New Delhi seat against BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi and AAP's Brijesh Goyal.
Polling is on for the Chandni Chowk, East Delhi, New Delhi, North East Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi, North West Delhi seats which represents the union territory of Delhi in Parliament.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his wife Seema Sisodia vote at a polling station in East Delhi
President Ram Nath Kovind and his wife Savita Kovind cast their vote in Delhi today during the penultimate phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. President Kovind, along with the First Lady, went to polling booth number ten in Rashtrapati Bhavan premises.
In North East Delhi constituency, the city's BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit and Delhi AAP chief Dilip Pandey will fight it out.
Apart from the three city chiefs of the main parties, the other prominent candidates are BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi, who is contesting from New Delhi, and AAP's Atishi, contesting from East Delhi.
Olympian boxer Vijender Singh is making his electoral debut from South Delhi on a BJP ticket. Union minister Harsh Vardhan is contesting from Chandni Chowk, and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir is fighting on a BJP ticket from East Delhi.
A total of 13,819 polling stations has been set up at 2,700 locations across Delhi, with one model polling station in each of the 70 assembly segments. Seventeen polling stations will be staffed only by women.
According to the summary of the electoral roll published on April 23, there are over 1.43 crore voters in Delhi - 78,73,022 male and 64,42,762 female, while 669 belong to the third gender. At least 2,54,723 voters are in the age group of 18 and 19.
Here is a detailed list of candidates contesting phase 6 of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The list includes details like party name, age, education, income, constituency, and more.