Lok Sabha elections: Are India's geographically extreme constituencies politically opposite too? Here's the answer

Prior to the counting of votes in the world's largest democracy, let us see whether the geographically extreme constituencies in the country hold democratically opposing political preferences.

Northern-most constituency: Ladakh

This icy constituency, which has the Siachen glacier in it, is one of the six constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir and had the least number of polling stations - 559 - for the lowest number of voters - 1,71,819. Historically, Ladakh has favoured voting for the Congress or Independent candidates - with Congress winning Lok Sabha elections from 1967-1984 and 1996. While the BJP had won in 2014 by fielding previously independent MP Thupstan Chhewang who had a margin of a mere 36 votes over his Congress rival candidate Ghulam Raza. The multi-cornered battle this time is between BJP's Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, Congress' Rigzin Spalbar and five independent candidates including journalist Sajjad Hussain who enjoys the backing of NC and the PDP.

Eastern-most constituency: Arunachal East

This Congress-stronghold constituency in Arunachal Pradesh has repeatedly voted for the grand old party in 1980-1991, 1999, 2009 and 2014.  In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, Ninong Ering beat Tapir Gao of BJP by garnering 45.3% of the votes. Historically the Saffron party has won the constituency only once in 2004 fielding Tapir Gao who is also the BJP's choice for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The poll battle was fought between Gao and Congress' Lowangcha Wanglat.

Western-most constituency: Kachchh

This coastal constituency in the Prime Minster's home state of Gujarat is a BJP stronghold. Since 1996, this SC reserved constituency has been held by the Saffron party with Pushpdan Gadhavi winning the seat four times from 1996-2004. Following this it was won by Poonamben Jat in 2009 and Vinod Chavda in 2014, riding high on the Modi wave. Incidentally, BJP had fielded Chavda again in 2019 to counter Congress' Naresh Naranbhai Maheshwari. Congress had previously held the seat in 1984.

Southern-most constituency: Kanyakumari 

The southernmost tip of the Indian mainland has historically given mixed results in Lok Sabha polls with the then- M Karunanidhi-led DMK winning the 2009 elections. That year, DMK's J. Helen Davidson had won with a huge margin garnering 41.81% of the votes while her BJP rival had earned 33.24% of the votes. In 2014, when AIADMK had fought the elections without allying with the BJP, the saffron party's Pon Radhakrishnan had won gaining a whopping 3,72,906 votes riding high on the Modi wave. This was one of the two seats which had not voted for the then Jayalalitha-led AIADMK. In 2014, defying the emergence of Prime Minister Modi, Jayalalitha's party had won 37 out of 39 Tamil Nadu constituencies, emerging as the third-largest party in parliament following the Congress.