Phase 5 of India election held in Gandhi bastions, Ladakh, Ram Temple town

Voting held for 49 seats across six states and two union territories, the fewest of the constituencies going to the polls in seven-phase election.

Indians have voted in the fifth phase of a mammoth general election, the world’s largest with nearly 970 million eligible voters, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a rare third term.

Monday’s phase had the fewest constituencies going to the polls with 89.5 million voters eligible to vote for 49 seats in the lower house of parliament across six states and two union territories.

The staggered seven-phase vote began on April 19 and has already decided the fate of 428 of 543 members of the Lok Sabha. Results will be declared on June 4.

Two boroughs that are strongholds of the main opposition Indian National Congress party’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty went to the polls on Monday. Family scion Rahul Gandhi is contesting from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh in addition to Wayanad in Kerala, which has already voted.

India allows candidates to contest multiple constituencies, but they can represent only one. If he wins both, he would choose one, and the other would hold a new election.

Rae Bareli has returned a Congress candidate in 17 of the 20 elections held there since 1952, mostly members of the Gandhi family. Rahul’s mother and former Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has represented the seat four times in parliament but decided not to contest this year.

“I am handing over my son to you. Just as you made me yours, please treat him as one of your own. He will not disappoint you,” Sonia Gandhi said on Friday as she made an emotional appeal to voters during a rally in the family borough with Rahul and her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Smriti Irani, the federal minister for