The Editors' Cut | Election 2024 Phase-2: What's At Stake? | NDTV Profit

5 months ago

How important is phase 2 of #LokSabhaElections2024?

Watch Tamanna Inamdar and Alex Mathew discussing this on today's 'The Editors' Cut'.

For the latest news and updates, visit: ndtvprofit.com

Transcript

00:00 We're talking about the elections this morning and Alex, that's the focus on Editor's Cut, isn't it?

00:06 Absolutely. What else should we speak about? It has to be the second phase of the general elections.

00:12 88 constituencies going to polls and they have in fact already started seeing people queuing up to

00:19 cast their vote. And the most important question to ask this morning is what are the key battles

00:27 to watch out for and how important is this phase of the polls? So let's start with that.

00:32 Yeah, the reason that this phase is important, there are about 88 seats that go in and remember

00:38 phase one was the one with the largest number of seats. This is 88 seats. Why this one will

00:42 attract a lot of headlines, Alex, is because of the faces. The names that are going to polls. So

00:47 you have Hema Malini, you have the former speaker coming in, Rahul Gandhi, the Wynard battle is in

00:55 this phase. You have a very interesting battle between Shashi Tharoor and Rajiv Chandrasekhar

01:01 in Viruvananthapuram. I'm excited to see what happens there. But beyond that, this phase is all

01:07 about Kerala, I would say. That's the big one. Because all of Kerala goes to polls. All of Kerala

01:14 goes to polls. About half of all seats in Rajasthan go to polls. Half of all seats in Karnataka go to

01:21 polls, Bengaluru polls. And I'm hoping, Bangaloreans, please come out and vote. You know,

01:27 all urban centers, including Bangalore, are really known for poor voting turnouts. Take an off if you

01:35 have to. You have a legal right to take an off if you go and vote. So and there's also a portion of

01:40 Uttar Pradesh that goes to polls. Yes, there are seats in Uttar Pradesh. Of course, there are seats

01:43 all over. That's why the 88 seats in all but I'm just talking about the key one. So why is this one

01:47 important? Clearly the big fight in Kerala. Now, Kerala is somewhere where the BJP has never had a

01:53 seat. That's fine. But look at what happened in 2019. Their vote share went from a minuscule amount

02:00 to nearly 15%. Interesting. In 2019, they are going to try and increase the vote share further.

02:08 That's really going to be the big fight. Whether they get a seat or not, I mean, that's a bonus.

02:13 The big picture, it's not going to matter to whether they form the government. But this whole

02:18 election, there's been a focus on making further inroads into the south of this country. It's

02:23 greenfield territory, relatively speaking. So which is why Kerala is important. Rahul Gandhi's

02:28 Why Not seat is important. It's considered to be the safe seat, but it's a three cornered battle.

02:33 So there is Annie Raja of the CPIM. And she's very popular. She's very popular. She is D. Raja's

02:39 spouse, who's the head of CPIM, very veteran leader. So she's not a very easy walkover kind

02:46 of candidate. You have the BJP's Kerala chief K. Surendran on the other side in Why Not. And

02:52 Smriti Irani, who actually won Amethi and claims to have pushed Rahul Gandhi out of Amethi, has

02:58 been campaigning nonstop for K. Surendran. So Why Not is one interesting seat to watch.

03:04 Likely to make it through. That's what the polls predict. But with what margins. Thiruvananthapuram,

03:09 like I said, is interesting because it's a three cornered seat. Shashi Tharoor is a three-time MP

03:13 from there. So anti-incumbency, etc. But there is, of course, CPIM, Rajiv Chandrasekhar and Shashi

03:20 Tharoor. Rajasthan also important because half of seats go there. And what we've seen with Rajasthan

03:27 is that when it comes to the Lok Sabha elections, no matter how they go one way or the other in

03:31 assembly, they alternate between the BJP and the Congress. But when it comes to Lok Sabha,

03:36 it's all one way for the BJP usually. So we'll see what happens in Rajasthan. And that's an

03:42 interesting data point, right, about various constituencies that always vote the same way when

03:48 it comes to the general elections. The populace just knows how to go. Yeah. So a lot of Indian

03:54 voters now are very clear that how they want to vote in the general elections versus an assembly

04:00 elections is different. That's why Karnataka also becomes key. You'll see a lot of our IT bosses

04:06 come out to vote this morning. I think I already saw pictures of Narayan Murthy. Tejaswi Surya is

04:11 on the ticket as well in Bengaluru. Karnataka voted for the Congress last time. How will they

04:19 vote in a general election? Will they stay with the Congress or will they vote for the BJP?

04:25 Remember, the JDS and the BJP are in alliance in Karnataka this time. So all in all an exciting

04:32 sort of phase. Just one more point I'd like to add before we wrap, Alex, is look at what's been

04:36 happening in the last two days. And this is what I would want to watch. This inheritance tax

04:41 conversation, this redistribution of wealth conversation. Does it impact voters in the favour

04:49 of the BJP is what I would like to see. Because I just want to see if you can pull up that chart,

04:53 the 2019 results in terms of BJP's NDA's vote share versus India's vote share. The NDA got 46%

05:00 vote share in the seats they fought, whereas the NDA was a little lower. It was about 32-33%

05:08 odd vote share. So it's a tough one and important for the NDA and the BJP to increase their vote

05:15 share in this phase. Absolutely. And we'll know soon enough. We will of course, Tamanna, be bringing

05:20 live coverage of the voting. And once again, I'd like to reiterate, if you are watching this,

05:27 and if you are in any of those constituencies, please do go out and exercise your right to vote.

05:33 Just want to add, if you're in Bengaluru and our colleague Pratibha has done this excellent story,

05:38 there are dosa restaurants which are giving you discounts, rapidos giving you a discount if you

05:44 go with an inked finger. So just go vote. Yeah, there are bonuses and benefits to going out to

05:51 vote beyond just the exercise of the mandate that you've been given, or rather exercise of

05:57 the right to vote.

The Editors' Cut | Election 2024 Phase-2: What's At Stake? | NDTV Profit

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