New Delhi: From Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad, Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram to Hema Malini in Mathura and Arun Govil in Meerut, the fates of several prominent personalities will be locked by the voters in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
The second phase has 88 Lok Sabha constituencies including all 20 seats in Kerala, 14 in Karnataka, 13 in Rajasthan, eight in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, six in Madhya Pradesh, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and one each in Tripura, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.
Rahul Gandhi
Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala is set to witness a tough contest between INDIA bloc allies. The Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI), which are part of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc are now rivals in Kerala for the key Wayanad seat.
CPI has fielded Annie Raja from the seat. She is the wife of CPI general secretary D Raja and holds the post of general secretary in the party’s National Federation of Indian Women.
The BJP has fielded K Surendran as a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate in its attempt to put up a tough fight for the Gandhi family scion in Wayanad. K Surendran is a prominent leader from north Kerala who became the BJP state president in 2020.
Arun Govil
Actor Arun Govil, who is renowned for his portrayal of Lord Ram in the epic Ramayana on national television, has been contesting from Meerut on BJP’s ticket.
He is up against Samajwadi Party’s Sunita Verma and Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Devvrat Kumar Tyagi.
Hema Malini
Actor-turned-politician Hema Malini is again in the fray from Mathura. She is a two-time MP from the seat and will look forward to score a hattrick.
She is up for a two-pronged contest with Congress party’s Mukesh Dhangar and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Suresh Singh contesting from Mathura.
Shashi Tharoor
Former UN diplomat and Congress leader will be seeking a fourth straight term from Thiruvananthapuram constituency, as he is up against a two-front contest against Union Minister of State, Rajeev Chandrashekhar and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Panniyan Ravindran.
Tharoor, who has held the seat since 2009, is facing a challenge as the BJP has named a strong face against him. Chandrashekhar has served as the MoS for Electronics, Entrepreneurship and Information Technology.
Tejasvi Surya
BJP leader Tejasvi Surya will aim to win the seat of Bangalore South for the second time. Notably, the seat has been a bastion for the BJP, as the party has not been defeated from here since 1991.
The spotlight is on the intense competition between Tejasvi Surya and INC’s Soumya Reddy, who is vying to claim the parliamentary seat for Congress.
Bhupesh Baghel
The former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, whose government in the state was voted out last year, will look forward to make a political comeback by winning the seat of Rajnandgaon.
The seat has been a BJP bastion for over three decades. Baghel faced the challenge against sitting BJP MP Santosh Pandey.
Om Birla
Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, who is a two-time BJP MP from Kota, Rajasthan will be looking to score a hattrick from the seat.
He is up against Congress’ Prahlad Gunjal, who is a former BJP leader.
Voting began at 7 am today and will conclude at 6 pm. The Lok Sabha election is being held in seven phases till June 1 and votes will be counted June 4.
The second phase of polling was to be held on 89 seats but voting in Betul, Madhya Pradesh has been deferred to May 7 due to the death of the BSP candidate.
Several opposition parties have come together to form the INDIA bloc to put up common candidates aiming to stop the BJP juggernaut from forming the government for third straight term.
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