NEW DELHI: The last round of the seven-phase national election is being held today in 59 Lok Sabha seats. At least 912 candidates are contesting in seven states and one Union Territory. The results will be announced on May 23. Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is contesting from Varanasi, some of the key contestants who are fighting in this round are Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP rebel who joined the Congress Shatrughan Sinha, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar; Misa Bharti, daughter of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav, Congress leader Manish Tewari, former Punjab chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and BJP leader Kirron Kher, among others.
Here’s a list of the 10 key candidates contesting in round 7:
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking for re-election from Varanasi. He won from this constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh in 2014, defeating Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress’s Ajay Rai by a huge margin. PM Modi at his rallies in Uttar Pradesh has said he has huge support from the people of Varanasi and he’s confident of a massive win again.
- Shatrughan Sinha, Patna Sahib, Bihar: BJP rebel Shatrughan Sinha, who joined the Congress a month before the national election, is contesting from Patna Sahib, where he is looking to retain the seat for a third consecutive term. He faces Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in this seat. The actor-turned-politician has said he is confident of winning from the seat. “I have won the seat in the past two elections with margins that were the highest for Bihar. This was because of the immense love people have for me. Moreover, I am not a usual party-hopper. The circumstances under which I had to quit the BJP are known to all,” he had said.
- Sukhbir Singh Badal, Ferozepur, Punjab: Former Punjab chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal is fighting from Ferozpur seat and faces Shiromani Akali Dal rebel and Congress nominee Sher Singh Ghubaya from this seat. Sukhbir Singh Badal is a lawmaker from Jalalabad seat. He last contested the Lok Sabha election in 1999 from Faridkot seat.
- Manish Tiwari, Anandpur Sahib, Punjab: Congress leader Manish Tewari is the party’s candidate from ANANDPUR SAHIB in Punjab. Before being given the Anandpur Sahib seat, Manish Tewari had formally asked for a ticket from the capital Chandigarh, just two days after Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife said she wanted to contest from there. A national spokesperson for the Congress, he had been a Lok Sabha parliamentarian from Ludhiana, but had backed out of contesting from there in 2014 due to health-related reasons.
- Kirron Kher, Chandigarh: BJP’s Kirron Kher had wrested the Chandigarh seat in 2014 from the Congress’s Pawan Bansal, who won it three times in a row. Kirron Kher, 63, is up against Pawan Bansal again. Her nomination from Chandigarh by her party, however, was announced at the last minute, over-riding the objections of the Chandigarh BJP chief Sanjay Tandon.
- Abhishek Banerjee, Diamond Harbour, West Bengal: Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and considered number two in the Trinamool Congress, is seeking re-election from Diamond Harbour seat, where he is pitted against the BJP’s Nilanjan Roy. The CPI(M) has nominated Fuad Halim and the Congress Soumya Aich Roy for the seat.
- Sunny Deol, Gurdaspur, Punjab: Actor-turned-BJP candidate Sunny Deol is fighting from Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency in Punjab. Sunny Deol, 62, faces tough competition from Congress candidate and parliamentarian Sunil Jakhar, who is the Punjab Congress president. Others who are fighting in the seat are the Aam Aadmi Party’s Peter Masih and the Punjab Democratic Alliance’s Lal Chand. He is the second generation of Deols to have entered politics. His father Dharmendra had won the Lok Sabha polls from Rajasthan’s Bikaner on a BJP ticket in 2004.
- Misa Bharti, Pataliputra, Bihar: Misa Bharti, the eldest daughter of jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) national president Lalu Prasad,
is fighting from Pataliputra in Bihar. Misa Bharti hopes to gain sympathy – particularly of the members of the Yadav caste to which she and her rival belong – with her campaign almost entirely focused on her ailing father who is serving sentences in fodder scam cases and has not been able to secure bail, even on health grounds. - Ravi Shankar Prasad, Patna Sahib, Bihar: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Patna Sahib in Bihar. He faces the Congress’s Shatrughan Sinha. As Law Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad played a crucial role in framing legislation for making triple talaq punishable with imprisonment. BJP leaders who campaigned on his behalf have highlighted the contributions he has made as law minister.
- Ravi Kishan, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh: Bhojpuri superstar Ravi Kishan is the BJP’s pick for the national election in the crucial Gorakhpur seat in Uttar Pradesh. The actor-turned-politician’s first tryst with politics was when he had contested the Lok Sabha election in 2014 as a Congress candidate from his hometown Jaunpur, a city in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the actor has a massive following. A BJP wave in the state ensured his loss. With his candidature, the BJP, which is facing a formidable challenge in the SP-BSP alliance, intends to exploit his popularity in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
