Chandigarh, May 15
As the nation tunes in to watch the Lok Sabha elections results unfold tomorrow, all eyes would be on the six North Indian states.

High-voltage contests have spiced up the poll battle in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and the lone Union Territory of Chandigarh that will determine the political future of several national and state leaders.

The results will seal the fate of top BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley,Vinod Khanna, Shanta Kumar, Rao Inderjit Singh, Maj Gen (retd) BC Khanduri, Harsh Vardhan, Congress bigwigs — Kapil Sibal, Ajay Maken, Ambika Soni, Capt Amarinder Singh, Deepinder Singh Hooda, Naveen Jindal, Pratibha Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Pawan Kumar Bansal — besides regional party leaders such as Farooq Abdullah (NC), Mehbooba Mufti (PDP) and Harsimrat Kaur Badal (SAD).

Though these six states put together have fewer seats (46) as compared to Bihar (54) or Maharashtra (48), there is a much higher interest in the results of key constituencies such as Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Srinagar, Udhampur, Kangra, Mandi, Hisar, Rohtak and Chandigarh.

Also, the representatives in the Union Cabinet from the region are expected to be much higher.

States like Haryana (10 seats), Delhi (7 seats) and Chandigarh (1 seat) that went to polls on April 10 clearly saw a strong pro-Modi wave that gave BJP candidates a perceptible advantage. However, by the time other states such as Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand witnessed polling (May 7), national political scene had somewhat undergone a change.

In Punjab, keenly watched seats are Amritsar, Bathinda, Anandpur Sahib, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur. In Amritsar, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley is pitted against former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. Actor Vinod Khanna has locked horns with Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa in Gurdaspur.

Bathinda is witnessing a contest between SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal and her brother-in-law Manpreet Badal. Senior Congress leader Ambika Soni is contesting from Anandpur Sahib while Punjab Congress Legislative Party leader Sunil Jakhar is in the fray from Ferozepur.

It will be a fierce fight in Chandigarh where Congress’ Pawan Kumar Bansal, BJP’s Kirron Kher and AAP’s Gul Panag are in the fray. The ‘Modi wave’ appears to have given some advantage to the BJP nominee, though Gul is being considered a dark horse.

Pollsters are predicting a debacle for the Congress in Haryana that retained 9 of the 10 seats for the party in the 15th Lok Sabha. Rohtak, where Chief Minister BS Hooda’s son Deepinder is contesting, is the only seat that appears to be ‘safe’ for the Congress. Key names in the fray include industrialist Naveen Jindal (Kurukshetra), Haryana Janhit Congress chief Kuldeep Bisnoi (Hisar) and Aam Admi Party’s Yogendra Yadav (Gurgaon).

In Himachal, barring Mandi where Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh is in the fray, the BJP seems to be comfortably placed in the remaining three parliamentary constituencies. While senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar is in the fray from Kangra, former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur is contesting from Hamirpur.