Prominent Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor, and actor-turned-politician Arun Govil are among the key candidates in the fray for the second phase of the Lok Sabha including Hema Malini, Om Birla and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from BJP who are seeking a hat-trick of wins from their respective constituencies.
The first phase of the elections which was held last Friday for 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories saw a voter turnout of around 65.5 per cent.
In the second phase of Lok Sabha polls on April 26, polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, seven in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Gandhi is the sitting MP from Wayanad in Kerala and is seeking re-election. He is contesting against CPI's Annie Raja and BJP's K Surendran.
In the 2019 election, Gandhi secured victory by a substantial margin of more than 700,000 votes against his closest rival, CPI's P P Suneer.
Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, who is pitted against Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the BJP and CPI's Pannyan Raveendran, is hoping to retain the Thiruvananthapuram seat for the fourth time.
Meanwhile, Hema Malini, who has held Mathura constituency since 2014, is contesting against Congress' Mukesh Dhangar while Om Birla, a two-time MP from Kota, is facing Prahlad Gunjal from the Congress party.
Union minister Shekhawat is eyeing a third win from the Jodhpur seat while Congress candidate Karan Singh Uchiyarda is likely to put up a strong fight.
Tejasvi Surya, the sitting MP for Bangalore South and the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), will face Congress' Sowmya Reddy.
Former chief minister of Chhattisgarh and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel is contesting from Rajnandgaon, a stronghold of the BJP for over 30 years. Baghel is pitted against BJP's Santosh Pandey, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections succeeding Abhishek Singh, the son of former Chief Minister Raman Singh, also from the BJP.
Actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi is also contesting from Thrissur against K Muraleedharan of Congress and VS Sunil Kumar of CPI(M). In West Bengal, Sukanta Majumdar, incumbent BJP MP from Balurghat, is seeking re-election. He is pitted against Biplab Mitra of the Trinamool Congress and Joydeb Siddhanta of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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