Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Did you know 8 Union Ministers, 2 ex-CMs, one former Guv are in fray in 1st phase?

Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.

Nitin Gadkari, the minister of roads and transport, is aiming for a hat-trick of wins from the Nagpur seat. He had won the seat in 2014 against Vilas Muttemwar, the seven-time MP, by a margin of 2.84 lakh votes, and he did it again in 2019 against Nana Patole, the head of the Maharashtra Congress, by 2.16 lakh votes.

Kiren Rijiju, a union minister, is a candidate from the Arunachal West seat. Since 2004, the 52-year-old has served as the constituency's representative three times. Nabam Tuki, a former chief minister and current head of the Arunachal Pradesh Congress, is Rijiju's principal opponent.

The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, Sarbanada Sonowal, is requesting to return from Dibrugarh, Assam, to the Lok Sabha. Sonowal, a Rajya Sabha member, was fielded from Dibrugarh after Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Rameswar Teli, was not given a ticket.

Muzaffarnagar, a town renowned for its complex caste system, is currently seeing a three-way election contest, with Union Minister Sanjeev Baliyan facing off against BSP candidate Dara Singh Prajapati and Samajwadi Party candidate Harindra Malik.

Two-time lawmaker Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is going for a hat-trick in Udhampur.

Union minister and Rajya Sabha member Bhupendra Yadav, who succeeded retiring MP Balak Nath, is running against incumbent Congress MLA Lalit Yadav, who comes from Rajasthan's Matsya district and has the backing of the Yadav caste.

Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is pitted against former Congress minister Govind Ram Meghwl from Bikaner parliamentary seat in Rajasthan.

One of the most anticipated contests between L Murugan of the BJP, the Union Minister of State for Fisheries, and A Raja, the sitting DMK MP and former telecom minister, is taking place in the Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu.

 This will be the first time that Murugan, who was elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, is contesting from here.

Sivaganga MP Karti Chidambaram is aiming for a re-election from a seat his father won seven times, competing against BJP’s T Devanathan Yadav and AIADMK’s Xavier Dass.

In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, BJP president K Annamalai will face off against DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK leader Singai Ramachandran in the ballot test.

Tamilisai Soundararajan is running for the Chennai South Lok Sabha seat. He just resigned from his positions as governor of Telangana and lieutenant governor of Puducherry in order to resume his political career.

Daughter of veteran Congress leader Kumari Ananthan, Soundararajan had contested 2019 Lok Sabha elections against DMK’s Kanimozhi, but lost by a huge margin in Thoothukudi.

Kanimozhi is running for the seat again this time. SDR Vijayaseelan has been fielded by NDA ally Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar), whereas R Sivasami Velumani has been fielded by AIADMK from the constituency.

Nakul Nath, the son of former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and leader of the Congress, is running for reelection in Chhindwara. Kamal Nath has retained the seat strongly, having won it nine times since 1980.

In the 2019 polls, the BJP bagged 28 seats out of the state’s 29, but missed out on picking Chhindwara, where Nakul beat the BJP’s candidate by 37,536 votes to emerge as the lone Congress MP in the state.

Out of the two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura, the contest between state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha and former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb is expected to be highly charged in the seat of West Tripura, which will vote in the first round on April 19.

Having won Lok Sabha elections twice since 2014 from Kaliabor constituency in Assam, Gaurav Gogoi, Congress’ deputy leader in Lok Sabha and son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, finds himself as the new candidate in neighbouring Jorhat, where BJP’s Topon Kumar Gogoi won in 2019. Gaurav Gogoi’s shift to Jorhat came after the impact of delimitation exercise in his 2019 constituency, Kaliabor.

The BJP's nominee for the Inner Manipur seat, Manipur Law and Education Minister Basanta Kumar Singh, is facing off against JNU professor and Congress candidate Bimal Akoijam.

 

A intriguing contest between Rahul Kaswan of the Congress and BJP candidate Devendra Jhajharia, a two-time Paralympic gold medallist in the javelin throw, is about to take place in Churu, a BJP stronghold in northern Rajasthan. The turncoat Kaswan has added intrigue to the battle for Churu. The two-time BJP member only quit in March when the party refused to give him a ticket.

Polling for the 543 seats for electing the 18th Lok Sabha will be held in seven phases. The votes will be counted on June 4.