A total of 96 seats across 10 states and Union Territories will go to polls on Monday, with the fate of 1,717 candidates hanging in the balance. Voting will be held in all 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, all 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh, 13 in Uttar Pradesh, five in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in Maharashtra, four in Odisha, eight in West Bengal and one in Jammu and Kashmir.
More than 19 lakh polling officials have been deployed at 1.92 lakh polling stations for the over 17.70 crore eligible voters, including 8.73 crore women.
Srinagar is the sole seat going to polls from Jammu and Kashmir in the fourth phase. Nearly 17.48 lakh voters will choose from 24 candidates contesting from the constituency. It is the first major election in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
So far, till phase three of the Lok Sabha elections, polling has concluded in 283 seats out of 543, with voter turnout at 66.14%, 66.71% and 65.68%, respectively.
The weather forecast indicates that the parliamentary constituencies going to polls are likely to experience normal to below normal temperatures and there will be no heatwave-like conditions in these areas on polling day.
Polling for the next three phases in the country is on May 20, May 25 and June 1. The counting of votes is on June 4.
(With PTI inputs)