Overview
- Election Commission figures late Thursday reported Puducherry at 89.20% turnout, Assam at 85.10% and Kerala at 77.50%, with counting scheduled for May 4.
- Assam features the BJP’s bid for a third straight term against a Congress-led challenge, Kerala tests the Left Front’s push for an unprecedented third term, and Puducherry pits the ruling NDA against a Congress-DMK alliance with actor Vijay’s TVK entering as a potential third force.
- In Assam, officials deployed more than 150,000 security personnel and enabled webcasting across all polling stations to support the single-day vote.
- The Assam contest follows a 2023 redrawing of constituencies that reduced seats where Muslim-community votes had strong influence, intensifying identity and migration debates in the campaign.
- A late-campaign dispute in Assam saw Congress leaders allege multiple foreign passports held by the chief minister’s wife, which the family denied as AI-fabricated documents, with police cases filed and visits to a Congress spokesperson’s residence reported.