NEW DELHI: Former foreign minister Jaswant Singh will feature in Thursday’s race in the fifth round of India’s nine-stage elections. With hours left for voting, Mr Singh approached the election commission on Wednesday with a complaint accusing the state police of harassing his supporters.

He is appearing for the first time as an independent candidate after being removed from the Bharatiya Janata Party for questioning its decision not to field him from his home constituency _ Barmer in Rajasthan.

Mr Singh expressed fears of booth capture and bogus voting by BJP supporters in some assembly constituencies in Barmer and suggested that booths in Bayatu and Gudamalani areas be declared hyper-sensitive.

India’s ruling Congress and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata PartyBJP) have huge stakes in the fifth phase of voting in 121 Lok Sabha constituencies on Thursday. This phase covers the largest number of Lok Sabha seats in an election.

Karnataka, where all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies would witness polling, is expected to provide comfort to the beleaguered Congress. In the state assembly election held ten months ago the Congress captured power from the BJP, which for the first time since 2008 had succeeded in forming a government. However, the assembly election in May last year was a different ball game for the Congress as the BJP was in a very bad shape after exit of former chief minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, from the party. Now that he is back into the party fold, the Lok Sabha poll would not be the same for the Congress.

Karnataka is one state in the country where the popularity of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi would be tested, Press Trust of India said.

It would be watched with keen interest as to how much difference he could make to fortunes of his party.

Twenty of the 24 Lok Sabha constituencies in Rajasthan would be covered in Thursday’s poll. In the 2009 general election the Congress had won 20 seats. However, its performance in the December state assembly election was disastrous. It is to be seen if the Congress could manage to recover some ground.

In Maharashtra 19 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats are slated for voting. The Congress-NCP alliance had won 25 seats in the 2009 election. After the split in the Shiv Sena, it would be interesting to watch how much difference ‘Modi factor’ would make in the state.

Eleven seats each in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh are scheduled for the fifth phase. In both states the BJP needs many seats if it has to rule. In Odisha the party is looking to challenge the citadel of Biju Janata Dal (BJP), led by Navin Patnaik.

Bihar is another state to watch where seven of the 40 seats would see polling. It is for the first time the BJP is testing its fortunes on its own after the Janata Dal (United) ended its 17-year long alliance with it.

Karnataka can take pride of place in the current round of electoral battle with a former prime minister and six former chief ministers being in the fray.

Interestingly, there is no other former prime minister who is contesting except H.D. Deve Gowda. He, too, at 81, has made it clear that this will be his last contest.

There are three union ministers and four former union ministers, apart from one incumbent minister in the Siddaramaiah government and three others who have been ministers in the past. Perhaps there is no other state where such a big electoral fight is on and eight of the 28 constituencies in Karnataka are in this league.