Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in Maharashtra’s Amravati on Wednesday, the last day of campaigning for the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls on April 26. Rahul Gandhi, who is resuming his campaigning after a brief break due to illness, will address public meetings in Amravati and Solapur, while Amit Shah will hold a rally in Amravati after a public event in Kerala’s Alappuzha, where BJP’s Sobha Surendran is contesting against AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal. Later in the day, Amit Shah will inaugurate the BJP’s election office in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency of Varanasi. While Amravati and Alappuzha will go to polls in the second phase, Solapur will vote in the third phase on May 7.
Meanwhile, other senior leaders of both Congress and BJP will continue their campaigns on Wednesday. All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be in Wayanad, where Rahul Gandhi is in the fray. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a public meeting in Chhattisgarh’s Surguja followed by two meetings in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar and Betul. He will also hold a roadshow in Bhopal. ‘Modi ji will lead the roadshow in Bhopal on April 24,’ said Madhya Pradesh BJP’s media cell chief Ashish Agrawal. The roadshow will cover a distance of 1.5 km from the old Vidhan Sabha to New Market area.
Surguja, Bhopal, and Sagar will go to polls in the third phase, while Betul votes on April 26. BJP national president J.P. Nadda will be in Bihar and hold three rallies in Bhagalpur, Khagaria, and Madhubani. Bhagalpur and Madhubani vote on April 26, while Khagaria goes to polls in the third phase.
The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce directions on Wednesday on a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The VVPAT is an independent vote verification system which enables electors to see whether their votes have been cast correctly.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta is scheduled to pronounce the directions on the plea in which order was reserved by the apex court on April 18.
Repolling will be held on Wednesday in eight polling stations in Arunachal Pradesh, where EVM damage and violence were reported during polling for the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls on April 19, an official said. The Election Commission in an order on Sunday declared the polling in the eight polling stations as void and ordered fresh polling between 6 am and 2 pm on April 24, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Liken Koyu said in a communique. The ruling BJP has already won 10 seats unopposed in the 60-member Assembly.
