The first phase of polls will be held on all seats of Tamil Nadu (39), Rajasthan (12), Uttar Pradesh (8), Madhya Pradesh (6), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1). Besides, there will be five seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, four in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two seats in Manipur, and one seat each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh.
Four states — Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh — will also pick new assemblies along with the Lok Sabha. Of these, Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32) are first down today.
Backed by a frenzied, hardcore campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the BJP is aiming to win 370 of 543 Lok Sabha seats – a steep rise from its score of 2019. The Prime Minister has set the NDA a target of 400. In the last election, the NDA won 353 seats — up by 5 per cent from 2014. The BJP won 303 seats.
The Opposition bloc INDIA, which mostly made headlines over its disarray in the run-up to the polls — especially with the defection of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar — has been standing together following the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor policy case. Even so, in multiple pockets, the parties are up against each other, flouting the rule of one-on-one contests they guaranteed would push the BJP out.
The big violators are Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which has entered its candidates against the Congress not just in Bengal but a few northeastern states as well. The other is Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, which has done the same in Punjab and elsewhere, despite having a seat sharing agreement with the Congress in Delhi.
The BJP is hoping to win 22 of the 25 seats in the northeast – an area it now dominates — sweep the huge swathe of the Hindi heartland, Jammu in the north and Gujarat in the west. In Bengal, it hoping to flourish at the cost of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and make further inroads in Odisha, even though the proposed alliance with Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal fell through.  
In south — once a fortress against all northern parties except the Congress — the BJP is expecting to win big in Karnataka, which voted in a Congress government last year. With outreaches spearheaded by PM Modi, it is also hoping to make a dent in the Dravidian politics of Tamil Nadu. As insurance, it is piggybacking a handful of smaller parties, including PMK of S Ramadoss.  
The Congress, pushed out of much of north India, insists it is on the cusp of a comeback. Senior leader KC Venugopal has said the party will post improved performance in most northern states – including the BJP bastions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. With assembly poll victories in Telangana and Karnataka, and the alliance with DMK in Tamil Nadu, it projects huge confidence about the results in the south.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers, one former governor and a number of key leaders are in fray today, making for scintillating contests in more than 20 seats. Among them are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Jitendra Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Sanjiv Balian, former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Congress’s Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi and former Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal.  
In 2019, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) won 45 of these 102 seats and the NDA 41. Six of the seats have been redrawn as part of delimitation. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.

The Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat will see a high-stakes battle, with Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai facing DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK’s Singai Ramachandran. The candidature of its Tamil Nadu state president shows the BJP is pressing hard to increase its presence in south India.
Union Minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari is eyeing a third straight victory from Maharashtra’s Nagpur seat. The seat will see a contest between Mr Gadkari and Congress candidate Vikas Thakre, who is at present the Nagpur West MLA.
Jitin Prasada, who quit Congress in 2021, is among the key candidates of the BJP in the first phase. He replaced two-time MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi. The BJP got a solid majority in UP in the previous two Lok Sabha elections. The Samajwadi Party fielded Bhagwant Saran Gangwar, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielded Anees Ahmes Khan against Mr Prasada.
Former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi is contesting from Gaya. This election holds important political significance for the 79-year-old Manjhi. Gaya has the highest number of candidates – 14 in total – contesting the elections. The BJP has left the Gaya (reserved) seat for its ally, the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S).
The BJP is leaving no stone unturned to snatch the only seat won by the Congress in the 2019 elections, Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. Nakul Nath, son of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, is fighting again from the Chhindwara seat against BJP candidate Vivek Bunty Sahu, who had lost to Kamal Nath in the last two assembly polls.
The Jorhat seat in Assam will decide if the Congress’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, can make it to the elected house this time too. The Constituency has been seen as a stronghold of the BJP. Mr Gogoi’s decision to contest the elections from Jorhat, instead of his family’s stronghold Kaziranga (erstwhile Kaliabor) — from where he is the MP — has made the contest interesting.
The assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats) and Sikkim (32 seats) will also be held today. Voting will begin at 7 am and end at 6 pm. The Election Commission has deployed over 18 lakh polling personnel across 1.87 lakh polling stations; over 16.63 crore people are eligible to vote.
Polling will be held in all seats of Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1).
Besides, there will be voting in 12 seats in Rajasthan, 8 in Uttar Pradesh, 6 in Madhya Pradesh, 5 seats each in Assam and Maharashtra, 4 in Bihar, 3 in West Bengal, 2 seats in Manipur, and one seat each in Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, and Chhattisgarh.
In 2019, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 45 of these 102 seats and the NDA 41. Six of these seats have been redrawn as part of the delimitation exercise.

The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is investigating claims by Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) that Nestle was adding sugar and honey to infant milk and cereal products sold in India. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has also taken note of the issue and issued a notice to FSSAI.