Lok Sabha 2024: Kharge questions logic behind long-drawn polls as ECI announces 7-phase schedule

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday, 16 March, said a seven-phase election for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls meant that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to tour everywhere".

Kharge said that the polls should have rather been completed in three or four phases. "We are not anxious about what is going to happen, but Modiji putting seven phases, which means that he wants to tour everywhere. In this country, I have also contested nearly 12 elections and there hardly used to be four phases. Sometimes it used to be even one phase. I have seen two phases also but the maximum it used to be four," he told reporters in Bhubaneswar.

Kharge said conducting polls in seven phases meant that nearly all the development works would be stopped.

"Stopping nearly 70-80 days, imagine how the country will progress? Because of the election code of conduct...materials will not be supplied. The budget will not be spent. So according to me, this is not good. He could have completed within three or four phases," he said.

"So, it is easy for people also to get their businesses completed, infrastructure everything. It should have helped but anyways Modi is Modi," he added.

The 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases beginning from 19 April with the counting of votes scheduled on 4 June for the world's biggest election exercise, according to the announcement by the Election Commission.