New Delhi:

The BJP’s Arun Govil — Lord Ram of the hugely popular television serial Ramayan — set against Samajwadi Party’s Dalit candidate Sunita Verma, Meerut is set to be the Ground Zero of one of the most interesting contests in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP swept the country’s largest and most crucial state in 2014 and 2019, but its total had dropped from 72 to 62 of the 80 seats. The party is now determined to recoup its losses — especially with the 370-seat target laid down by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Samajwadi Party — which is fighting alongside the Congress this time — had partnered Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in 2019. Together, they had won 15 seats, but Meerut was not one of them.
The party’s candidate Haji Mohammad Yaqoob had lost to the BJP’s two-time sitting MP  Rajendra Agarwal.

Mr Agarwal, though, was winning with progressively narrower margins. In 2019, he won with a margin of around 5000 votes. Many said it was because of the division of the Muslim vote, with the SP, Congress and the BSP all picking Muslim candidates.

The BJP, in the pursuit of 370, has now decided to play safe, replacing Mr Agarwal with the hope that the enthusiasm over the Ayodhya Ram temple will speed Mr Govil over the finish line.

But the SP’s final choice of candidate has added some hurdles to the route, with Dalits and Muslims comprising around 50 per cent of the constituency.

The SP had initially picked Bhanu Pratap Singh — a Supreme Court lawyer and an outsider — to contest a seat that has voted for the BJP since 2004.

The selection had raised eyebrows and protests by the party’s local cadre prompted a change. Enter Sardhana MLA Atul Pradhan, but his ticket was swiftly passed to Sunita Verma.

Ms Verma is the former Mayor of Meerut. Her husband Yogesh Verma, a former MLA of the Samajwadi Party, is a well-known face in the constituency.

The contest, though, will be triangular, with the BSP fielding Devvrat Tyagi, playing on the caste considerations perennial to the state.   

New Delhi:

The voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will take place across 89 seats in 13 states on Friday.

The votes will be cast in all 20 Lok Sabha seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, seven seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2019, the ruling BJP-led NDA won 56 of these 89 seats, while the opposition UPA secured 24.

Among the prominent contestants are Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, BJP’s Tejasvi Surya, Hema Malini, and Arun Govil, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor, and former Karnataka chief minister and JDS’s HD Kumaraswamy.

Lok Sabha Election 2024 Phase 2: 5 Richest Candidates

1. Karnataka Congress leader Venkataramane Gowda, who is popularly known as ‘Star Chandru’, is the richest candidate in the phase 2 polling, according to an analysis of self-sworn affidavits of the contestants by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch. Mr Gowda, who is contesting against HD Kumaraswamy, has declared assets worth Rs 622 crore.
2. Incumbent Karnataka Congress MP DK Suresh is the second richest candidate with assets valued at Rs 593 crore. Mr Suresh, the younger brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, is a three-time MP who is seeking re-election from Bangalore Rural. According to his poll affidavit, he has Rs 16.61 crore in banks as deposits, has agriculture land at 21 locations worth Rs 32.76 crore, non-agriculture land at 27 places worth Rs 210.47 crore, nine commercial buildings worth Rs 211.91 crore and three residential buildings worth Rs 27.13 crore.
3. BJP MP Hema Malini, who is fighting again from the Mathura Lok Sabha seat, is the third richest with assets worth Rs 278 crore.
4. Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Sanjay Sharma is fourth on the list. He has declared assets worth Rs 232 crore.
5. HD Kumaraswamy, former Karnataka Chief Minister, is fifth on the list and has total assets of about Rs 217.21 crore.

Phase 2 Election 2024: 5 Poorest Candidates

1. Laxman Nagorao Patil, who is fighting Lok Sabha polls from Maharashtra’s Nanded as an Independent, is the candidate with the lowest assets in the second phase. According to his poll affidavit, he has declared assets worth Rs 500.
2. Mr Patil is followed by another independent candidate Rajeswari KR, who is contesting from Kasaragod in Kerala and has assets worth Rs 1,000.
3. Pruthvisamrat Mukindrao Dipwansh, who entered the contest as an independent candidate from Amravati (SC), is third on the list and has total assets of Rs 1,400.
4. Dalit Kranti Dal leader Shahnaz Bano, who is contesting from Rajasthan’s Jodhpur, has declared assets worth Rs 2,000.
5. VP Kochumon, who has been fielded by the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) from Kerala’s Kottayam, is fifth on the list with Rs 2,230 assets.

After the second phase, polling will be over in Kerala, Rajasthan, and Tripura. In the first phase of voting on April 19, polling was completed in all seats of Tamil Nadu (39), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Puducherry (1), Sikkim (1) and Lakshadweep (1).