Rajasthan to vote in Lok Sabha polls on April 19 and April 26

Jaipur, March 16 (IANS) Polling in Rajasthan's 25 Lok Sabha constituencies will be held in two phases - on April 19 and April 26, the Election Commission of India announced on Saturday.  

In 2019 also, elections were held in two phases in Rajasthan.

A total of 12 parliamentary constituencies - Ganganagar (SC), Bikaner (SC), Churu, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Alwar, Jaipur, Jaipur Rural, Bharatpur (SC), Karauli-Dholpur (SC), Dausa (ST), and Nagaur, will go to polls on April 19, and the remaining 13 - Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Pali, Ajmer, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur (ST), Banswara (ST), Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran - on April 26.

The bye-election for Bagidora Assembly seat (ST) will be held on April 26. The seat fell vacant to the resignation of sitting Congress MLA Mahendra Jeet Singh Malviya who joined the BJP and will contest from the Banswara Lok Sabha seat on its ticket.

Counting will be held on June 4 with the rest of the country.

The model code of conduct has come into effect with the announcement of the elections.

The date of issue of notification for the first phase of the election is March 20, the last date for filing nomination is March 27, scrutiny will be done on March 28, and the last date of withdrawal is March 30.

Similarly, for the second phase, the date of issue of notification is March 28, the last date for filing of nomination is April 4, scrutiny of nomination will be held on April 5, and the last withdrawal of nomination is April 8.

The BJP, for the last two LS polls, has been making a clean sweep on all 25 seats. in 2014, it won all 25 seats on its own, while in 2019, it formed an alliance with the RLP (Nagaur) seat and again won all.

It is confident of winning all 25 seats this time too. "We will win all 25 seats to ensure BJP crosses the 400 target as set by PM Narendra Modi," state BJP chief C.P. Joshi said.

It's been four times when one party has swept all 25 seats.

In the 1984 elections, when Shivcharan Mathur of Congress was the Chief Minister, all 25 Lok Sabha seats came to Congress's account. However, it was also under Mathur's government, when the Congress lost all 25 seats in the 1989 polls, making him the only Chief Minister, whose party won and then lost all the state's Lok Sabha seats.

In 2014, Vasundhara Raje became the second CM after Mathur, under whom the party captured all 25 seats, while in 2019, Ashok Gehlot became the second CM to lose 25 seats.