The 2019 Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19. The seven phases will cover 543 constituencies. Political pundits and analysts are looking at bellwether seats across the country trying to understand the mood of the voters.
The bellwether seats are the ones which determine who forms the government at the Centre. It is said whichever party wins the bellwether seats, also known as the deciding seat, gets to forms the central government.
Here is a look at the bellwether seats in Phase 2 of Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held on April 18.
Lok Sabha Election News Live Updates
The polling in Phase 2 will be held on April 18. A total of 95 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 13 states will be going to polls in the Phase 2 of 2019 general elections. The states that are going to polls in Phase 2 are: Assam (5 parliamentary constituencies), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (3), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (10), Manipur (1), Odisha (5), Tamil Nadu (38), UP (8), West Bengal (3) and Puducherry (1).
There are two bellwether seats in Phase 2 of Lok Sabha elections -- Beed in Maharashtra and Sundargarh in Odisha.
Beed (Maharashtra)
Beed is a Lok Sabha constituency in Beed district of Maharashtra. The current MP for Beed constituency is Pritam Munde from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In 2014 general elections Gopinath Munde was elected as the MP of Beed constituency after he secured 6,35,995 votes defeating Dhas Suresh Ramchandra, who was Nationalist Congress Party's candidate who secured 4,99,541 votes. Gopinath Munde was then made the Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in the BJP-led government in Centre. However, Gopinath Munde died in a road accident after a month.
In the byelection Pritam Munde of the BJP defeated Congress's Ashokrao Patil handsomely. While Munde polled 9,22,416 votes, Patil received 2,26,095 votes.
For 2019 Lok Sabha elections BJP has renominated Pritam Munde. His main rival will be Nationalist Congress Party's Bajrang Sonwane.
Sundargarh (Odisha)
Sundargarh is a Lok Sabha constituency in Sundargarh district of Odisha. The constituency is reserved for scheduled tribes (ST). The current MP for Sundargarh parliametary constituency is Jual Oram who belongs to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Jual Oram was elected as MP of Sundargarh constituency in 2014 elections after he secured 3,40,508 votes defeating Dilip Kumar Tirkey, who was Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate. Dilip Kumar Tirkey received 3,21,679 votes.
Jual Oram has been renominated by the BJP. His main rivals in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are BJD's Sunita Biswal and Congress's George Tirkey.
While BJP will try to retain the seat, BJD will hope that women voters would opt for it (the party has fielded women candidates in 33 per cent of the seats, there are sops for women in the poll promise). Congress, on the other hand, will hope George Tirkey will draw the tribal votes to its fold.
However, all three parties are riddled with factionalism and rebel candidates can eat into votes.