Lok Sabha polls: PM Modi, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and other Union ministers in fray

The Lok Sabha elections will kick off on Friday, with polling in 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories.

Published on: Apr 18, 2024, 16:44:16 IST

By HT News Desk, New Delhi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) quest for a third consecutive term at the Centre, will begin on Friday, when polling will be held for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories. The remaining 441 parliamentary constituencies will vote in six subsequent phases, the last of which will be on June 1, followed by counting of votes of June 4.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the release of BJP's election manifesto �Sankalp Patra� for the Lok Sabha polls, at the party headquarters, in New Delhi, Sunday, April 14, 2024. (PTI Photo/Shahbaz Khan)

From the BJP, several ministers, including the trio of PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah, will be in the fray. Party heavyweights not contesting include its national president JP Nadda, and Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman (Finance), S Jaishankar (External Affairs), and Ashwini Vaishnaw (Railways, IT), among others. Each of them is a Rajya Sabha member, representing the states of Gujarat (Nadda, Jaishankar), Karnataka (Sitharaman) and Odisha (Vaishnaw).

List of Union ministers contesting Lok Sabha polls:

Candidate	Constituency	State
Narendra Modi (Prime Minister)	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh
Rajnath Singh (Defence Minister)	Lucknow	Uttar Pradesh
Amit Shah (Home and Cooperation)	Gandhinagar	Gujarat
Nitin Gadkari (Road Transport and Highways)	Nagpur	Maharashtra
Smriti Irani (Women and Child Development; Minority Affairs)	Amethi	Uttar Pradesh
Anurag Thakur (Sports and Youth Affairs; I&B)	Hamirpur	Himachal Pradesh
Arjun Munda (Agriculture)	Khunti	Jharkhand
Bhupender Yadav (Environment)	Alwar	Rajasthan
Jyotiraditya Scindia (Civil Aviation)	Guna	Madhya Pradesh
Dharmendra Pradhan (Education)	Sambalpur	Odisha
Gajendra Shekhawat (Jal Shakti)	Jodhpur	Rajasthan
Mansukh Mandaviya (Health)	Porbandar	Gujarat
Arjun Ram Meghwal (Law)	Bikaner	Rajasthan
Sarbananda Sonowal (Ports; Shipping and Waterways; AYUSH)	Dibrugarh	Assam
Kiren Rijiju (Earth Sciences)	Arunachal West	Arunachal Pradesh
Narayan Rane (MSME)	Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg	Maharashtra
G Kishan Reddy (Tourism and Culture; North East Development)	Secunderabad	Telangana
V Muraleedharan (MoS: External Affairs)	Attingal	Kerala
Parshottam Rupala (MoS: Animal Husbandry, Dairying, and Fisheries)	Rajkot	Gujarat
Rajeev Chandrasekhar (MoS: Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; IT)	Thiruvananthapuram	Kerala
Kailash Choudhary (MoS: Agriculture)	Barmer	Rajasthan
Shobha Karandlaje (MoS: Agriculture)	Bangalore North	Karnataka
Nisith Pramanik (MoS: Home Affairs; Sports and Youth Affairs)	Cooch Behar	West Bengal
Nityanand Rai (MoS: Home Affairs)	Ujiarpur	Bihar
Ajay Bhatt (MoS: Defence)	Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar	Uttarakhand

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HT News Desk
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