As the polling day got underway in New Delhi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was one of the first at his designated polling booth to cast his vote. The Minister expressed his confidence that the Voters of Delhi would once again support the Modi government and Viksit Bharat.
EAM Jaishankar, while showing his inked finger after casting his vote for the sixth phase, highlighted that he was the first male voter in the booth.
“We have just cast our vote and I was the first male voter in this booth. We want people to come out and cast their votes as this is a decisive moment for the country,” he said.
“I believe that the voters in Delhi will once again support Viksit Bharat and the Modi government,” he stressed.
Earlier on Friday, in an interview to ANI Jaishankar said that the BJP would be making huge strides in the southern states while doubling its hold on the northern states.
Trashing Opposition parties’ claim that BJP will be ‘Dakshin mein saaf aur uttar mein half’ (rout in the south, and half in the north), Jaishankar said that the Modi government will return to power with an even bigger majority.
“I think from our point of view…for us, it (BJP) would be dakshin mein double (twice in the south), and for the Opposition, I would say uttar mein even more trouble,” he stated.
On being asked about BJP’s ‘400 paar’ slogan, Jaishankar acknowledged that this is an ‘ambitious target’ but said that the number has not been floated just like that, and there is a huge calculation behind it. He added that BJP leaders were advised to visit constituencies the party hadn’t won in 2019, and look into what changes need to be made and what needs to be done for winning those seats.
“This is the BJP you are talking about. There is a kind of process, an exercise out of which an outcome is produced…we had done this exercise, which were the seats we did not win in the 2019 election, what should we do to try and win those seats? Among them, what looks more likely? What are the changes we need to make?” the EAM further stated.
Meanwhile, voting for the sixth phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections began early in the morning today across 58 parliamentary constituencies spread over six states and two Union Territories (UTs) amid tight security and arrangements.
The voting started at 7 am and will continue until 6 pm, with those in line by the closing time still allowed to vote.
The sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls includes eight seats in Bihar, all 10 seats in Haryana, one seat in Jammu and Kashmir, four in Jharkhand, all seven seats in Delhi, six in Odisha, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, and eight in West Bengal. A total of 889 candidates are in the fray.
Some of the key seats in this phase include New Delhi, North-East Delhi, North-West Delhi and Chandni Chowk in the national capital and Sultanpur and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag-Rajouri, West Bengal’s Tamluk, Medinipur, Haryana’s Karnal, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon, Rohtak and Odisha’s Bhubaneswar, Puri and Sambalpur are some of the other key seats. Stakes are high for the BJP as well as for the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and other constituents of the INDIA bloc in this phase of the election.