PM Modi Leads List Of Heavyweights In Last Round Of Lok Sabha Polls

Fifty-seven seats across eight states and Union Territories are voting today in the seventh and final phase of Lok Sabha election

As the seven-phase Lok Sabha election that started on April 19 draws to an end, a total of 904 candidates are hoping for a good show in the last phase of polling today. Fifty-seven seats across eight states and Union Territories are voting today. Among the candidates are several heavyweights from across the political aisle.

Here is a look at some key candidates in this phase

Narendra Modi: Prime Minister Modi, who is eyeing a third term, is the BJP's candidate from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, a seat he won in the 2014 and the 2019 polls. The eastern UP seat is among the most high-profile constituencies of the country, now that it is represented by the Prime Minister. Since the 1990s, the BJP has lost Varanasi only once - in the 2004 polls. Last time, Prime Minister Modi won the seat with a margin of 4.79 lakh votes. This time, the INDIA bloc has fielded UP Congress chief Ajay Rai against the BJP's most prominent candidate. Mr Rai had contested from Varanasi in 2019 too, but finished third.

Anurag Thakur: The country's Information and Broadcasting minister, who also holds the sports portfolio, is contesting from Himachal Pradesh's Hamirpur seat, which he has won four times in a row. The 50-year-old minister, who is among the prominent voices in the Narendra Modi government, is up against former Congress MLA Satpal Raizada. There are 17 Assembly segments under the Hamirpur parliamentary seat, six of which are held by the Congress. In fact, Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his deputy Mukesh Agnihotri are MLAs from two of these segments. So, the Congress is going all-out to make the contest tough for Mr Thakur, who won in 2019 by a margin of nearly 4 lakh votes.