Telangana Lok Sabha elections: Voting dates, total seats and Congress candidates

Telangana, the youngest state of India, has 17 parliamentary constituencies where voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be conducted in a single phase on May 13, followed by counting of votes on June 4. The state separated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

The 2024 general elections in India will be held across 543 Lok Sabha seats in the country in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.

In 2019 polls, K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), formerly the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), won nine of the 17 seats in the state and got a 41.71% vote share. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came second, winning four seats. It got 19.65% votes. The Congress and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) managed to get three and one seats each.

The Congress, which won 64 of 119 seats in last year's Assembly elections, is hoping for a similar show this year after a dull performance in 2019. The BJP, on the other hand, is looking forward to improving its tally in the state.

Much like last time, Telangana will witness a three-way contest between the BRS, the BJP and Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The state has 3.30 crore voters in total, including more than 1.94 lakh electors above 85 years of age, said Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj. After the Telangana Assembly elections in November 2023, nearly 12.50 lakh new voters have been enrolled while the names of 8.58 lakh people have been deleted from the voters list.

Polling in the state will be conducted in the fourth phase of the 2024 general elections on May 13. The last time, voting in Telangana was held on April 19. The state witnessed a total voter turnout of 62.77%.

Telangana has a total of 17 parliamentary constituencies. Of these, three seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and two for Scheduled Tribes (ST) candidates, while the rest are unreserved.

After being restricted to a mere three seats in the 2019 polls, the Congress is hoping to improve its performance in Telangana in the 2024 elections, buoyed by the dominant victory in last year's state elections and with the support of the INDIA bloc.

Here's a look at the Congress candidates in Telangana announced so far: