The fifth phase of polling will see 49 Lok Sabha constituencies in six states and two Union Territories, including the high-profile Rae Bareli and Amethi seats, vote on Monday.

The BJP had won 32 of these Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and the Congress just one — Sonia Gandhi from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli.

Sonia has vacated her seat in favour of Rahul Gandhi, the incumbent MP from Kerala’s Wayanad from where he has also contested in these polls. The seat is seen as a bastion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, where the Congress has only lost thrice since
Independence.

Other prominent contestants include Union ministers Smriti Irani from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, Rajnath Singh from Lucknow and Piyush Goyal from Mumbai North. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah is contesting as a National Conference candidate from Baramulla and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya from Bihar’s Saran for the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Bengal’s Bangaon, Barrackpur, Howrah, Uluberia, Serampore, Hooghly and Arambag will also vote on Monday. The Trinamool Congress had won four of these seats in 2019 and the BJP three.

The parliamentary constituencies spread across Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh include 8.95 crore voters who will vote in 94,732 polling booths. All seats in the country’s financial capital Mumbai will also be voting in this phase.

Polling for 35 Assembly constituencies in Odisha will also take place simultaneously.

As many as 17 special trains and 508 helicopter sorties have been deployed to ferry around 9.47 lakh polling officials, the Election Commission of India said in a statement on Sunday.

There is a heatwave forecast in the east and central Indian states on Monday.