Narendra Modi vs Ajay Rai, Kangana Ranaut vs…: Battles you can’t miss in Phase 7 of Lok Sabha polls

The seventh phase of voting in the Lok Sabha elections is almost here — it will be held on Saturday, 1 June. And once voting in this phase ends, the long election cycle will come to an end with only the results left to be announced on 4 June.

In this final phase of voting, 57 constituencies across seven states and a Union Territory will go to the polls. This includes 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha, three in Jharkhand and one in Chandigarh. All 13 seats in Punjab and four in Himachal Pradesh. The final phase of voting will decide the fate of as many as 904 candidates across political parties.

As we prepare for the last phase of voting, here are some key battles to look out for.

UP’s Varanasi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aiming for a hat-trick of wins from Varanasi’s Uttar Pradesh. In 2019, the PM secured a victory from the temple town with a margin of nearly 4.8 lakh votes. And is eyeing a five lakh margin for the polls this time around.

Notably, Varanasi, which is made up of five Assembly segments of Rohaniya, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Varanasi Cantonment, and Sevapuri, has always been a BJP stronghold. Since 1957, the BJP has won the seat seven times and the Congress six. In fact, the BJP has a near-perfect record since 1991, however, losing only once — to the Congress — in 2004.

For PM Modi, his biggest competition is Congress’ Ajay Rai, who had also contested the seat in the previous two elections.

Other candidates in the fray against Modi are Ather Jamal Lari of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party. The Indian Express calls him a veteran of several elections in Varanasi, without ever winning.

UP’s Gorakhpur

Considered as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s bastion, Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh will go to the polls in the seventh phase.

This Lok Sabha election, the Purvanchal seat will see a battle between two Bhojpuri actors: BJP’s Ravindra Shyamnarayan Shukla, popularly known as Ravi Kishan, and Samajwadi Party’s Kajal Nishad.

For Kishan, it’s a prestige issue. He won the seat in the 2019 elections, defeating SP’s Rambhual Nishad with a margin of more than 3 lakh votes.

Despite Kishan’s mass popularity, the influence and clout of Yogi Adityanath in the region will have a big role to play in the elections.

UP’s Mirzapur

Now famous for the show named after it, Mirzapur will see an interesting battle between Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal (Sonelal) party and SP’s Ramesh Chand Bind, who switched from the BJP after being refused a seat from his home constituency, Bhadohi.

Mirzapur has never voted for a MP three times in a row. But that’s the trend Patel hopes to buck as she stands for elections once again.

Patel has held the Mirzapur seat since 2014, winning in 2019 with a margin of 2.32 lakh votes, maintaining her 2014 lead of 2.19 lakh votes.

Caste plays a very important role in the elections in Mirzapur with Scheduled Caste (SC) voters comprising 26 per cent of the 19 lakh electorate. Among them, Jatavs, who have traditionally supported the BSP, form the majority. The BSP has fielded Manish Kumar Tripathi for this seat.

Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi

Also known as Chhoti Kashi, Mandi in the hill state has bagged a lot of media attention as Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut is making her poll debut from the BJP.

However, her stint in politics is starting on a rough note. That’s because she is up against Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh, who is the son of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh. In fact, Mandi is a bastion of the Singh family, with the seat currently held by Vikramaditya’s mother, Pratibha Virbhadra Singh, who won it in the 2019 bypolls.

Historically, Mandi has swung between the BJP and the Congress and with both candidates hurling taunts and jibes at each other, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Himachal’s Hamirpur

In the hills of Himachal’s Hamirpur, Union minister Anurag Thakur of the BJP is hoping for success for a fifth time. He has held this seat since 2008 when he first won it in 2008 following his father Prem Kumar Dhumal’s resignation after taking over as chief minister of the state.

However, this year, Thakur faces a tough challenge from Congress’ Satpal Raizada. The Congress candidate is also the vice-president of the party’s state unit and has served as the MLA of Una.

What makes this fight eve more interesting is the fact in the 2022 Assembly polls, the Congress won four seats each in Hamirpur and Una district and one each in Bilaspur and Mandi districts, while the BJP bagged only five seats and two seats went to Independents.

Bihar’s Pataliputra

Misa Bharti, daughter of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, will be up against sitting BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav. She will be hoping that this time around, the election gods smile down on her after she lost the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls to Kripal Yadav.

The Pataliputra seat seems to be unlucky for the Yadav clan, since it was created after the 2008 delimitation. In 2009, Lalu Prasad lost to Janata Dal (United)’s Ranjan Prasad Yadav, his one-time confidante, by 23,541 votes.

However, people on the ground say that this election isn’t a foregone conclusion. Misa Bharti is not too far behind this time with the INDIA bloc alliance also throwing its weight behind her.

West Bengal’s Diamond Harbour

The seventh phase of elections will be an acid test for the TMC as Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, will be contesting from Diamond Harbour. Banerjee is eyeing a hat-trick from the constituency which will see a triangular battle between the TMC, BJP’s Abhijit Das Bobi and CPI(M)’s Pratik ur Rahaman.

During campaigning, the sitting TMC MP has repeatedly exuded confidence about winning Diamond Harbour by a margin of over four lakh votes.

Chandigarh

The Union Territory of Chandigarh will see a direct battle between the BJP and the Congress in the seventh phase. For this seat, the BJP has dropped with its sitting MP Kirron Kher and gone with Sanjay Tandon, the former mayor of Chandigarh.

Tandon will be facing off against Congress leader Manish Tewari, a former Union Minister and currently Congress Member of Parliament from Punjab’s Anandpur Sahib constituency.

While the BJP is making an effort to register a third straight election victory in Chandigarh, the Congress is harping upon the ‘anti-incumbency’ factor against the BJP to grab the seat. The Congress also hopes to use the resentment against the BJP over the Chandigarh mayoral race situation. For those who don’t remember, the Supreme Court had overturned the election of the mayoral post and reprimanded the Returning Officer Anil Masih.

Punjab’s Patiala

Of the 13 Punjab Parliamentary seats, Patiala will be closely watched as it involves Congress-turned-BJP’s Amarinder Singh’s wife, Preneet Kaur. In the 2019 election, Kaur, who was then part of the Congress, had won with a significant margin against her closest competitor, Surjit Singh Rakhra of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

But this time around, Preneet Kaur is contesting on a BJP ticket and will have to fend off competition from AAP’s Balbir Singh and Congress’ Dharamvir Gandhi.

Maharani Sahiba — as she is often called by her supporters — holds the key to the BJP’s fortunes in Punjab, where it is contesting the elections independently. Earlier during campaigning, Kaur had said: “This election is not merely about politics. It is about the renewal of my relationship with the people of Patiala constituency. People’s unwavering ‘bharosa (trust)’ and ‘ashirwaad (blessings)’ are my greatest treasures,” she added.

We will have to wait until 4 June to see if people have in fact trusted her and given her blessings.

Odisha’s Kendrapara

Odisha’s Kendrapara Lok Sabha constituency is worthy of a mention in the big fights with the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) Anshuman Mohanty facing off against BJP’s Baijayant Panda.

As News18 reports, the BJD is in no mood to lose the Kendrapara seat to the BJP, for the simple reason that this is a legacy seat of the incumbent party in Odisha. In the past, this seat has seen the likes of former CM CM Biju Patnaik, Rabi Ray, and Srikant Kumar Jena being elected. Moreover, a defeat for the BJD here will be a big loss for Naveen Patnaik in terms of optics and prestige.

In 2019, this constituency saw a pitched battle between the BJD’s actor-turned-politician Anubhav Mohanty against BJP’s Panda. However, Panda suffered defeat with a margin of over 150,000 votes.

Other seats

Kolkata North is set for a major face-off between sitting TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay and the BJP’s Tapas Roy.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, former Union Minister and wife of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, is the three-time sitting MP from Bathinda, having won this seat since 2009. She is facing off against AAP’s Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, BJP’s Parampal Kaur Sidhu, Congress’ Jeet Mohinder Sidhu, and Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) nominee Lakha Sidhana.

In Bihar’s Patna Sahib, BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad will be squaring off against Congress’ Anshul Avijit, the son of former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar.

With inputs from agencies