Blistering heat, bitter campaigns, fumbling EC: Here’s how India voted across 7 phases

The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections are finally on the home stretch with both parties and the electorate readying to wrap up the season with result day on June 4. Despite a fall in voting percentage compared to that in the 2019 General Elections, the polls this time have been a fiercely fought one with both the ruling party and the Opposition leaving no stone unturned to one up the other – grassroots battles, caustic speeches, humour and sarcasm-laden social media campaigns, open letters, last-minute court hearings, and meditation ‘dramas’ are a few to name.

With the completion of the seventh and final phase of the polls, here’s a look at how the election has panned out since it kicked off on April 19.

Vitriolic, competitive campaign

The election campaign this time has largely been vitriolic in nature, with the ruling BJP including Prime Minister Narendra Modi blatantly resorting to Islamophobic rhetoric in their speeches to target the Opposition and minorities.

Even though the BJP’s campaign began with stress on ‘Modi Ki Guarantees’, the party’s vision for the country’s progress, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s goal of breaching the 400-seat mark in Lok Sabha, the narrative turned a darker shade after the first phase of the polls didn’t yield a satisfactory voter turnout compared to the figures from 2019.

From accusing the Opposition of nurturing a ‘Mughal’ mindset, eating meat during Shravan month to charging it with eyeing the ‘mangalsutras’ of women and being allergic to Hindu festivals and rituals – throwing in for reference the Congress’ refusal to attend the Ram temple inauguration – the BJP and Modi exhaustively used the religion card to paint INDIA bloc in ‘anti-Hindu’ colours.

Modi sparked a massive controversy with his “infiltrator” remark at a poll rally in Rajasthan, in what was dubbed a ‘hate speech’ targeting India’s 200-million Muslim population. While criticising the Congress’ poll manifesto, he had alleged that the party, if voted to power, will redistribute the country’s wealth among “infiltrators”. Unperturbed by criticisms, Modi and his colleagues doubled down on their attacks on the Opposition over the next few days, warning Hindu voters that they will be robbed of their property and their women of ‘mangalsutras’ if the Congress forms government at the Centre.

The Congress, wiser from its wins in Karnataka and Telangana, stuck to brass tacks in its campaigning and sensitised voters on its intention to protect the Constitution, telling them how the NDA’s goal to get 400 seats is a precursor to its aim to alter it. While alleging that the BJP would end the existing reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs, the Opposition has promised a caste survey if it forms government.

This time, the electioneering, both by the NDA and INDIA bloc were supplemented by costly digital campaigns, with videos caricaturing leaders of rival parties going viral on social media. The meteoric rise of influencers, dishing out explainers and insights into parties, performances and voting patterns have also shaped public opinion ahead of polling day. Data said the BJP has spent over ₹37 crore, over 300 times more than the Congress between December 5 and March 3 on digital ads alone.

Issues that overshadowed polls

Riding high on the euphoria of the Ayodhya Ram temple inauguration, the BJP heavily relied on the enforcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and abrogation of article 370 to rally voters during the polls. The Opposition singled out the very issues as divisive and indicative of the saffron party’s intolerance towards Muslims.

The elections were also conducted in the backdrop of the controversy over Electoral Bonds and BJP’s lion share in it and the arrest of prominent leaders including former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Even though Kejriwal secured bail in time to campaign ahead of voting in Delhi despite high drama over his diet in jail, his party was in for another controversy after its Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal accused the chief minister’s aide, Bibhav Kumar, of assaulting her.

Through the course of the elections, BJP alliance partner in Karnataka, JD(S) has also been grappling with the sex scandal involving its MP and patriarch Deve Gowda’s grandson, Prajwal Revanna.

The Congress, which seemed to have committed fewer faux pas in this election, was caught on the back foot when Sam Pitroda, the former chairman of Indian Overseas Congress referred to ‘inheritance tax’ in an interview, prompting the BJP to sharpen its attacks on the party over its wealth redistribution allegations.

Heatwave plays spoilsport

The elections spread over 43 days were conducted in the midst of a searing summer with Indian cities recording unprecedented rise in temperatures this year. Delhi, which voted on May 25, recorded India’s highest-ever temperature of 52.9 degrees Celsius three days later.

The latter part of April, which covered the first two phases of the polls, saw a heatwave sweep through parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, with temperatures hovering over 40 degrees Celsius. Kolkata saw the longest spell of heatwave in 100 years with the mercury staying above 40 for many days. While rains brought momentary relief, another spell of heatwave returned to northwest and central India, covering Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Delhi in the first week of May when the third phase was due. While heatwaves persisted over north and western India, Delhi faced extreme heat with temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius when the national capital voted in the sixth phase on May 25.

Anticipating the situation, a task force was formed comprising the Election Commission (EC), the National Disaster Management Authority and India Meteorological Department (IMD) to minimise the impact of the heatwave ahead of polling and encourage voters to visit booths. EC also released guidelines for staying cool at booths including drinking water and carrying an umbrella.

Many booths saw voting in the early hours of the morning and late in the evening – past the deadline of 5 pm – as voters skipped the sweltering afternoon hours.

Even though voters across several states braved the intense heat to cast their ballots, the polling percentage has been low compared to that in 2019 due to various other reasons. Low voter turnouts were also witnessed in cities like Bengaluru, Lucknow, Kanpur, Mumbai and Ahmedabad where people clubbed their weekend with voting day to go on holidays.

As per EC data released for the first five phases, Lakshadweep has recorded the highest voting percentage (84.20 per cent) followed by Assam (81.60 per cent) and Tripura (80.90 per cent). Bihar has polled the lowest at 56.90 per cent. The data shows a slump in voter footfall this year compared to 2019. Despite a rise in the electorate from 896 million in the last Lok Sabha polls to 968 million in the current one, the turnout this time is comparatively lower. Only 507 million votes were cast across 428 seats across five phases while the same in the last elections was 701 million votes.

While low voting was reported in Nagaland due to boycotts, the turnout was less than six per cent points than the last polls in Mizoram and Kerala.

However, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Telangana, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh saw the highest rise in polling.

As the IPL season which began on March 22 coinciding with the General Elections, the matches were scheduled in a way to avoid clashing with polling dates and timing.

Sporadic complaints of violence, mostly from West Bengal, were reported in the course of the polls with the TMC and the BJP trading charges of voter intimidation, rigging and threats to polling agents against each other.

The elections also saw reports of booth capturing – recently reported in Maharashtra’s Beed – and EVM vandalism in some booths, prompting the EC to order fresh voting in several polling stations.

Who said what

The election season, said to be the bitterest in recent times, has produced some of the most incendiary and foot-in-mouth statements by prominent leaders. Here are a few:

Congress will give your wealth to infiltrators – Modi

In an election rally in Rajasthan’s Banswara, Modi said the Congress will give the hard-earned money of people to “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”.

“This is urban Naxal mindset, my mothers and sisters; they will not even leave your mangalsutra. They can go to that level. The Congress manifesto says they will calculate the gold with mothers and sisters, and then distribute that property,” he said.

“Earlier, when their (Congress) government was in power, they had said that Muslims have the first right on the country's assets. This means to whom will this property be distributed? It will be distributed among those who have more children…It will be distributed to the infiltrators," the prime minister said, referring to the rule of the Manmohan Singh government.

Opposition can perform ‘mujra’ – Modi

In a blistering attack at INDIA bloc at a rally in Bihar on May 25, Modi said the Opposition was ready to perform ‘mujra’ – a dance performed by courtesans in the Mughal and pre-Independence era – to please the Muslim vote bank.

“Bihar is the land which has given a new direction to the fight for social justice. I wish to declare on its soil that I will foil the plans of the INDIA bloc to rob SCs, STs and OBCs of their rights and divert these to Muslims. They may remain enslaved and perform ‘mujra’ to please their vote bank,” Modi said.

How much money ‘shehzada’ took from Ambani, Adani? – Modi

Even though the Congress accuses BJP of hobnobbing with industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, Modi turned the tables when he questioned Rahul Gandhi if the duo had paid him to stop criticising them.

“You would have seen that the Congress ‘shehzada’ (Rahul Gandhi), for the last five years, has been repeating this. Ever since his Rafale row was grounded, he started repeating this – first, he kept speaking of five industrialists, and then started saying Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani. For five years. But ever since elections have been announced, they have stopped abusing the two. The shehzada should declare – during these polls, how much have they taken from Ambani-Adani (kitna maal uthaaya hai)? How many sacks of black money have been taken? Have tempos full of notes reached the Congress? What’s the deal that’s been struck? Why did you stop abusing Ambani-Adani overnight? Surely something is amiss,” he said during a rally in Telangana on May 9.

Two types of soldiers – Rahul Gandhi

Finding faults at the Centre’s Agniveer scheme, Rahul said the government has created two Indias by introducing the scheme.

“…One is the son of a poor, Dalit, minorities and the other is from a rich family. He has given a new name to the son of the poor, Agniveer, who won't be getting any facilities like pension, canteen...but, if you are a senior officer or one amongst the four, you'll get all those things. In the military, they have created 'two-India', two types of 'shaheed',” he said.

Convinced God has sent me – Modi

In a statement that must have cracked up voters and rivals alike, Prime Minister Modi during a TV interview said that the energy he has is not biological but bestowed upon him by God.

“When my mother was alive, I used to believe that I was born biologically. After she passed away, upon reflecting on all my experiences, I was convinced that God has sent me,” he told News18 in an interview.

“This energy could not be from my biological body but was bestowed upon me by God,” he said when the interviewer asked why he seemed more energetic this time compared to the last polls.

Northeast Indians resemble the Chinese – Sam Pitroda

At a time when Congress was already smarting from the criticism received due to Sam Pitroda’s ‘inheritance tax’ remark, the former chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress further embarrassed the party by drawing an analogy between Africans and South Indians and Northeast Indians and the Chinese to make a case for India’s diversity.

“We could hold the country as diverse as India together. Where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like the Arabs, people in the north look like, maybe, white and people in the south look like Africans. It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, different food,” Pitroda said in an interview that went viral on social media.

The comparison backfired with many calling it a racist statement. Pitroda resigned as the chairman of IOC soon after.

Lord Jagannath is PM Modi’s Bhakt – Sambit Patra

BJP’s Puri Lok Sabha candidate Sambit Patra left voters in Odisha fuming through his alleged inadvertently-made statement that Lord Jagannath – the deity whom thousands of Odias worship – was the ‘bhakt’ (devotee) of Prime Minister Modi.

“Lakhs of people have gathered here to see Prime Minister Modi. Jagannath is Modi’s bhakt and we are all Prime Minister Modi’s family. I cannot control my emotions and I think today is a momentous day for all Odias,” he said while speaking at a rally attended by the prime minister in Odisha.

Even though Patra later apologised and called it a slip of tongue, the BJD and Congress were unforgiving in their barbs against him.

Criticisms against Election Commission

The Election Commission has been at the receiving end of brickbats over alleged lack of transparency and failure to ensure free and fair polls.

After the first two phases of the polls, the commission faced flak for the inordinate delay in releasing the voter turnout data and not providing total number of voters in a constituency or the number of people who voted in each phase as opposed to the polls in 2019.

Opposition parties alleged that there was five to six per cent difference in voter turnout data released on the day of the polling for the first two phases and the revised number provided in subsequent press releases, pointing to concerns over manipulation in the counting stage. EC has denied the charge.

The complaints came in the wake of concerns over EVM and VVPAT tampering as well as reports of violence, bogus voting, EVM malfunctioning and vandalism and missing name of voters on electoral rolls.

Even as the EC dragged its feet on disclosing data on polling, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO, moved the Supreme Court seeking direction to the poll body to upload polling booth-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of voting for each phase. While the EC declined to part with booth-wise voter data, the Supreme Court refused to pass any direction in this regard.

A day later, on May 25, the commission released constituency-wise data on the number of votes cast for the first five phases while asserting that nobody can change data of votes polled.

The Opposition has lambasted the poll body for its alleged leniency towards leaders of the ruling party including Prime Minister Modi against whom no action has been taken despite delivering hate speeches targeting minorities.

For instance, even though Modi has repeatedly claimed credit for the performance of the armed forces and made hate comments about the minority community in India, the EC has found no merit in the complaints against him. This, even though reference to armed forces for political propaganda violates the Model Code of Conduct.

The poll body has also been accused of displaying exemplary alacrity in dealing with such complaints against leaders of Opposition parties.

Row over candidacy

The EC’s role has also come under the scanner over the cancellation of candidature of several rivals of BJP candidates at the last moment.

The election season also saw a massive slugfest between parties over selection of candidates. The Congress was left fuming when Mukesh Dalal, the BJP candidate from Surat Lok Sabha seat won the election unopposed before the May 7 polling, after both the Congress nominees Nilesh Kumbhani and Suresh Padsala couldn’t qualify as candidates and the rest of the eight candidates withdrew from the seat.

The Grand Old Party received another jolt when its candidate for the Indore seat, Akshay Kanti Bam, withdrew from the poll race at the eleventh hour and joined the BJP. The Congress has alleged that the leader was threatened into withdrawing his candidature by the BJP over past cases against him.

A massive row broke out when the candidature of popular comic Shyam Rangeela from the Varanasi seat, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting, was rejected. Rangeela in multiple bytes, videos and social media posts alleged how election officials were uncooperative in filing of nomination and did not take it on time when he finally went to submit it. He also alleged the District Magistrate misbehaved with him and asked police to evict him and his supporters from the nomination centre.

Several voters also complained that they found their names missing from the voters’ list on reaching the designated booth.