PM Modi Leads List Of Heavyweights In Last Round Of Lok Sabha Polls (Akhabar Factory)

• New Delhi: There are 904 candidates running in the seven-phase Lok Sabha election, which began on April 19, and they are all hoping for strong results in today’s final round of polling. Today, votes will be cast in fifty-seven seats spread across eight states and Union Territories. Numerous influential figures from opposing political parties are among the contenders.

Here are a few of the most important applicants for this stage.

• Narendra Modi: The BJP’s candidate from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, a seat he won in the elections in 2014 and 2019, is Prime Minister Modi, who is considering a third term. Now that the Prime Minister is representing the eastern UP constituency, it is one of the most well-known seats in the nation. The 2004 elections were the BJP’s only defeat in Varanasi during the 1990s. By a margin of 4.79 lakh votes, Prime Minister Modi won the seat the last time. This time, the INDIA alliance has put UP Congress leader Ajay Rai up against the most well-known contender from the BJP. In 2019, Mr. Rai also ran from Varanasi, but he came in third.

• Anurag Thakur: The nation’s minister of information and broadcasting, who also oversees sports, is running from the Hamirpur seat in Himachal Pradesh, a seat he has won four times in a row. The 50-year-old minister faces off against former Congress MLA Satpal Raizada. The minister is one of the well-known voices in the Narendra Modi cabinet. The Hamirpur parliamentary seat has 17 Assembly segments, six of which are represented by the Congress. Actually, MLAs representing two of these segments are Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his deputy, Mukesh Agnihotri. In order to make the race difficult for Mr. Thakur, who won in 2019 by a margin of around 4 lakh votes, the Congress is exerting all of its effort.

• Kangana Ranaut: The Queen actress is running for office for the first time from the Himachal Pradesh seat currently occupied by Pratibha Singh, the state Congress head and the late Virbhadra Singh’s wife, a six-time chief minister. Shortly before the election, the Himachal Pradesh-born actor, 37, became a member of the BJP. Virbhadra Singh’s family had long held Mandi, but Ram Swaroop Sharma of the BJP won it in 2014 and 2019. Pratibha Singh won the byelection that followed his death in 2021. Vikramaditya Singh, a state minister and son of Pratibha Singh, is the Congress’s nominee in this prominent race.

• Abhishek Banerjee: The Trinamool Congress’s No. 2 candidate and nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is running from Diamond Harbour, a seat he has previously won thrice. In this Lok Sabha election, Pratikur Rahaman of the CPM and Abhijit Das of the BJP will face off against the Trinamool general secretary, who has now become the second most visible member of the party. In the 2019 elections, Mr. Banerjee prevailed by a margin of 3.21 lakh votes.

• Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP and the eldest child of RJD founder Lalu Prasad Yadav, is running as the INDIA Opposition bloc’s candidate this time around for the Lok Sabha constituency in Pataliputra, Bihar. Prior attempts by Ms. Bharti to capture the seat in 2014 and 2019 had been unsuccessful as Ram Kripal Yadav of the BJP—once a close confidant of Lalu Prasad Yadav—tasted success. Ram Kripal Yadav is Ms. Bharti’s opponent this time as well.

• Ravi Kishan: The BJP has decided to keep the actor-politician in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, a seat he won in the 2019 election. The Gorakhpur seat has been a BJP stronghold for more than thirty years; current Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the party’s fiery leader, has won the seat five times in a row. After pulling off an unexpected victory in the 2018 bypolls, Ravi Kishan of the Samajwadi Party won the next year. Recently, Praveen Kumar Nishad joined the BJP. This time, the Samajwadi Party has selected actor Kajal Nishad to take on Ravi Kishan.