The polls in this phase will cover Jangal Mahal - the forested region of Bankura, West Midnapore, Jhargram and Purulia districts which used to be a Maoist hotbed during the erstwhile Left Front regime.Seats where elections will be held on Sunday are Tamluk, Kanthi, Ghatal, Jhargram (ST), Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura and Bishnupur (SC), where an electorate of 1,33,69,749 will decide the fate of 83 candidates. The last phase will be conducted on May 19.Eight seats in Bihar will go to polls on Sunday. All of these were won by the NDA in 2014. While Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP holds the Vaishali seat, the remaining were won by the BJP, which has given up Valmiki Nagar and Siwan in favour of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and fielded its sitting MPs from their respective seats.Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh is in the fray. The last phase will be held on May 19.While seven of these seats were won by the BJP in 2014, the Guna constituency was won by the Congress.Guna, one of the high-profile seats in this phase, would seal the fate of AICC general secretary and Congress candidate Jyotiraditya Scindia.Union minister and BJP nominee Narendra Singh Tomar is in the fray from Morena.

Source: Economic Times May 10, 2019 15:11 UTC