Election Commission announces polling dates of 5 states; Why are these elections crucial?

News Hub: it's going to be a very exciting politically sizzling summer of 2021 the election commission, today announced dates for assembly elections in four states and one union territory so elections will be starting from the 27th of march and resulted will be the second of may it's the states of West Bengal Assam Tamil Nadu Kerala and the union territory of Puducherry going to polls.

so all in all over 18 crore voters will be voting in 842 constituencies let's tell you why these elections are exciting the big battle undoubtedly is the one, in west Bengal 294 assembly constituencies it's an eight-phase poll and here you have two-time chief minister a very strong regional leader Mamata Banerjee,

who is going to try and stop! the bjp juggernaut the bjp on its side has been campaigning heavily with prime minister Modi uh home minister Amit shah leaving no stone unturned to bring what they say will be barbarian in West Bengal they aim to win 200 seats in a state where they have never won.

 so they want to conquer new territory let's come now to the state of Assam also very interesting with its 126 assembly seats here in 2016 the last round of these elections the bjp had won and formed a government in Assam, for the first time ever so chief minister sarban sonowal has the tough task of holding down the fort his biggest opponent will be in the congress that has traditionally ruled Assam and its tallest leader in.

 the state taran Gogoi passed away recently the congress meanwhile has tied up with a i wf but in and will try to rest back Assam from the bjp let's go across to Tamil Nadu where you don't have the congress and the bjp facing off directly but it is in a way a proxy battle because the two big players are the aia DMK in the 234 assembly constituents seat assembly the aiadmk has tied up with the bjp while the DMK has tied up with the Congress party

 the x-factor here is Sashi Kala close aide of former chief minister Jaya lalita we have to see what impact she has on Tamil Nadu polls let me come to Kerala another very exciting battle 140 assembly seats over here and traditionally the government has been alternating between two fronts every five years so on the one side you have the left-led coalition which is in power right now and then

 you have the congress-led coalition and by that arithmetic, it's the turn of the congress-led coalition but uh the current government the incumbents want to change that pattern and hope to retain power here the interesting twist in the tale is the bjp which does not really have a large presence in the state at all but is trying to make headway uh with a very interesting.

 the new leader in their party is the former bureaucrat metro man e Sridharan let's see if he manages to help the bjp make a dent in Kerala and then, of course, 

you have the union territory of purucheri just 30 seats there remember in 2016 this was the only victory that the congress had uh in this round of elections and they lost Puducherry that government fell because of defections just a few days before election dates were announced so the congress will try and take back Puducherry as well so if i were to sum it up these elections the summer elections of 2021 has the bjp, on the one hand,

 trying to conquer fresh territory as they have been doing politically for the last few years and the congress fighting for survival