Today’s Lok Sabha vote is scheduled; the Opposition tries to stop the PM’s march, but the BJP is eyeing a hat-trick

The 18th Lok Sabha election schedule will be released by the Election Commission of India on Saturday, initiating what promises to be one of the most significant political contests in the country’s history.

“On March 16 at 3 p.m., the Election Commission will hold a news conference to announce the calendar for the General Election of 2024 and some state assemblies. It will be broadcast live on the ECI’s social media channels, an EC spokesman said in a statement on Friday. The calendar for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was released on March 10. The seven phases of the elections took place between April 11 and May 19. Political parties anticipate that the elections will start on April 17 and end by the third week of May this time around.

In addition to a few primary goals, the governing BJP is targeting a third consecutive term at the center with the announcement of the timetable. In the event that PM Narendra Modi’s third straight attempt for reelection is successful, it would tie the record held by late PM Jawaharlal Nehru for the most consecutive visits to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Prior to the results of the polls, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reaffirmed their commitment to join the NDA alliance and win more than 400 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, surpassing the record of any party in doing so.

Following the murder of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, the Congress became the first party to surpass the 400-seat threshold.

Although the anti-BJP INDIA group is attempting to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s march via negotiations for seat-sharing agreements, it has been unable to come to agreements in the crucial battleground states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. The allies of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra are now holding talks.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced all of the candidates in West Bengal, which has the third-highest number of Lok Sabha seats (42) behind Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48). This has dashed the Congress’s aspirations of forming an alliance and left it in a position where it must rely on the Left to strike a deal.

Following the unexpected departure of chief architect Nitish Kumar in January, the INDIA bloc’s electoral predictions in Bihar went awry. The Rashtriya Lok Dal has joined the NDA in Uttar Pradesh as well, despite INDIA allies having finalized a pre-poll agreement in the state, similar to that of Tamil Nadu.

The BJP’s biggest adversaries will be Punjab in the north and South India.

The saffron party’s ongoing priorities are to increase its share of the vote in the eastern states of Bengal and Odisha, the southern states of Karnataka and Telangana, and the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

The TDP and Jana Sena have already reached an agreement with the BJP in Andhra ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. It is actively negotiating the LS and Assembly pacts with the governing BJD in Odisha as well.

The Congress has announced 82 candidates for the Lok Sabha election, while the Bharatiya Janata Party has nominated 267.