 "Supriya Sule vs Sunetra Pawar, Amit Shah vs...: The big fights in Phase 3 of Lok Sabha elections")
The third phase of the Lok Sabha elections is being held on Tuesday (7 May), with voters in 93 constituencies across 12 states and Union Territories set to exercise their franchise.
All 25 of 26 constituencies of Gujarat, the remaining 14 seats of Karnataka, 11 seats in Maharashtra, 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine seats in Madhya Pradesh, seven seats in Chhattisgarh, five seats in Bihar, four seats each in Assam and West Bengal, two seats in Goa, and one seat each in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu will go to polling. In Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already won the Surat Lok Sabha seat as its candidate was elected unopposed.
As Tuesday ends, more than 280 constituencies will have concluded voting. The remaining 263 Lok Sabha seats will go to polls in the rest of the four phases.
Electors will decide the fate of 1,351 candidates in the fray in the third phase. Here are the key battles that will be closely watched.
Gujarat’s Gandhinagar
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is seeking re-election from the Gandhinagar constituency, a bastion of the BJP since 1989.
The seat has been represented by tall BJP leaders like Lal Krishna Advani and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Advani, who won the seat six times, stepped away from electoral politics in 2019, making way for Shah. The 59-year-old won the Gandhinagar seat by over 5.55 lakh votes against Congress’ CJ Chavda.
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More ShortsThis time, the Congress has fielded 62-year-old Sonal Patel against Shah.
Maharashtra’s Baramati
It is a Pawar vs Pawar battle in Baramati. Veteran politician Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is taking on her cousin and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar from the seat.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidate Sule, who began her parliamentary journey as a Rajya Sabha member in 2006, is a three-time sitting MP from the Baramati Lok Sabha seat. She won the constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by garnering 6,86,714 votes against the BJP candidate, Kanchan Rahul Kul, who secured 5,30,940 votes.
The contest between Sunetra Pawar, who is making her electoral debut, and Sule for the high-profile constituency will be keenly watched.
Madhya Pradesh’s Guna
Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is in the fray from Guna. He was a Congress MP from the constituency from 2002 to 2019.
In 2019, he lost from his family bastion of Guna to the BJP candidate Krishna Pal Singh by a margin of 1,25,549 votes.
Scindia switched to the saffron party in 2020. This time, he is up against the Congress’ Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav.
Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri
Dimple Yadav is vying to retain the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Her late father-in-law and the Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav won the parliamentary constituency in 1996, 2009, 2014 and 2019.
The Mainpuri seat fell vacant after the death of the former UP chief minister in 2022, necessitating a bypoll. Dimple won the byelection, defeating Raghuraj Singh Shakya of the BJP by 2,88,461 votes.
— Dimple Yadav (@dimpleyadav) May 5, 2024
She is facing BJP’s Jaiveer Singh Thakur and Shiv Prasad Yadav of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) this time.
Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha
Former Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is locking horns with Congress’ Pratap Bhanu Sharma in Vidisha.
After being denied the CM post by the BJP, Chouhan is fighting the Lok Sabha polls for the saffron party from his home turf of Vidisha.
Known affectionately as ‘Mama’, Chouhan served as the MP CM for 20 years, ensuring the party’s victory in the 2023 Assembly elections.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Ramakant Bhargava of the BJP won from Vidisha with a margin of 5,47,754 votes against Shailendra Rameshchandra Patel of the Congress.
Vidisha has been a BJP stronghold for over three decades. This time, Congress stalwart Pratap Bhanu Sharma is challenging Chouhan.
Assam’s Dhubri
Badruddin Ajmal of the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) is seeking re-election from Dhubri for a fourth term. He won the constituency for the third time in 2019 with over 7.18 lakh votes.
Abu Taher Bepari of the Congress emerged as the first runner-up with 492,506 votes in the Muslim-dominated constituency.
Congress’ Rakibul Hussain and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally, candidate Zabed Islam are vying to wrest the seat from Ajmal this time.
Karnataka’s Shivamogga
Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat will see a three-cornered contest. The BJP’s BY Raghavendra, who is the son of former Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa, is again fighting from the constituency.
The Congress has given a ticket to Geetha Shivarajkumar, while KS Eshwarappa is fighting as an Independent candidate.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Raghavendra won the seat with over seven lakh votes, defeating JD(S) candidate S Madhubangarappa who got 506,512 votes.
Other seats
Former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh is competing from Rajgarh on a Congress ticket. Terming it his “last election”, Singh is challenging the BJP’s sitting MP Rodmal Nagar.
Pallavi Dempo is the first woman Lok Sabha candidate of the BJP from Goa. She is fighting against Kargil war veteran Captain Viriato Fernandes, a Congress candidate, from the South Goa constituency, a stronghold of the Grand Old Party.
Pralhad Joshi is aiming to be elected to a fourth term from the Dharwad Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka. The Congress has fielded Vinod Asooti, the party’s first non-Lingayat candidate since 1998 from the seat, as per Moneycontrol.
Former Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai is in the fray in Haveri against Congress’ Anand Swamy Gaddadevarmath.
In the North Goa Lok Sabha seat, Union Minister of State for Tourism and Ports Shripad Naik of the BJP is contesting against the Congress’ Ramakant Khalap.
With inputs from agencies
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